By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Lea KahnStaff Writer
A marathon bargaining session that stretched into the wee hours of Friday morning has yielded a tentative settlement between the Lawrence Township Education Association and the Lawrence Township Board of Education.
The teachers union and the school board worked through the stumbling blocks that had held up a contract settlement with the help of a state-appointed mediator during the initial mediation session Jan. 26. The two sides agreed to seek mediation when they could not reach an agreement last spring.
Details of the three-year contract will not be made public until after the union and school board approve the contract. The teachers union ratifies the contract first, and then it is sent to the school board for action.
The new contract would be retroactive to June 30, 2011. The last contract expired June 30, 2010, but it was extended for one year after the union agreed to a one-year wage freeze.
Union co-presidents Barbara Levine and Jeff Berry said they approached the process “with an optimistic spirit and worked cooperatively throughout to achieve a fair and equitable settlement.”
The union represents about 500 teachers, guidance counselors, Child Study Team members, nurses, instructional assistants, custodians, cleaners, buildings and grounds staff and secretaries.
Last week’s negotiation session began at 5:30 p.m. Thursday and ended at 3:45 a.m. Friday, school board president Laura Waters said. The mediator shuttled between the teachers union representatives and the school board representatives, who sat in separate rooms, she said.
”The mediator spends quite a lot of time with each side, (trying) to understand their position, and in the process, trying to get down to the meat of the conflict,” Ms. Waters said. “The mediator gets both sides to focus on the material matters. The mediator coaxes each side to be realistic.”
As the night went on at the Jan. 26 session, she said, each side made some concessions. They found themselves getting closer to an agreement, and finally reached the point where they could begin to hammer out the details, she said.
Ms. Waters said the school board was “delighted” to have resolved the contractual issues in a way that benefits the entire Lawrence Township community. The negotiations were resolved in a “very efficient” manner in order to complete the process in one night, she said.
During any good contract resolution, if both sides feel a little bit unhappy, it’s not necessarily bad, she said. The school board and the teachers union were able to collaborate and reach a “fair” agreement, she added.
”It was late, but we got the job done,” Ms. Waters said.

