NEA President Cynthia Perry talks with School Committee Chair Dick Carpender

In a brief session with only 13 community members in attendance, the Portsmouth School Commmittee approved a new one-year contract with teachers represented by the National Education Association (NEA). The 4 votes to approve came from a coalition of Democrats (Dick Carpender, Sylvia Wedge, and Marge Levesque) joined by Republican Mike Buddemeyer. Democrat Marilyn King and unaffiliated Cynthia Perrotti cast votes against, with Democrat Angela Volpicelli abstaining.

(I can understand someone voting against the contract on principle. But why on earth would anyone abstain?)

The contract offered no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increases for any of the teachers at step 1 through 9 (step increases only), with teachers on step 10 receiving a nominal $500 increase (which largely offsets the increase in health care co-pay from 10% to 13%.) Long-term sub pay was reduced, and several administrative changes clarified and added greater flexibility in the areas of house leaders, scheduling professional development, and how long a laid-off teacher stays on the recall list (down from 7 to 5 years.) My personal favorite is the "go-green" clause, Article X Section J which says that any required communication can be done through electronic notice.

"Our goal was to get a zero-cost-to-the-school-committee, and we ended up with a cost of $65K," said negotiating team member Sylvia Wedge,"Which is very low." (Indeed, on a budget of around $25M for salary and benefits, that's a remarkably small number, to my mind.)

There were a few specific questions from the bean counter on the Committee, and PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris asked a couple of fairly restrained, information-seeking questions, but overall, comment was civil and brief.

"I want to thank the union," said Committee Chair Dick Carpender. "This is the second year in a row that the union has agreed, for steps 1-9 at least to accept no COLA. That is a significant amount of money." Carpender praised the members of the NEA negotiating team, "These significant concessions that show that the union here is willing to work with us to get things done."

Negotiating team member Marge Levesque said, "I'd like to thank union president for her cooperation and profesional attitude and helping come up with an agreement that really benefitted the kids."

"These 6-7-month-long negotiations were always very cordial and with a lot of respect," said Carpender. "Sometimes it was fun, sometimes not so fun. I thought that no matter what happened in there, everyone treated each other with respect."

On behalf of the kids and parents who weren't able to be there tonight, I want to add a note of thanks to the negotiating teams, the committee, Dr. Lusi, and the NEA rank and file who ratified the contract. It is a huge relief to live in a town where things get worked out; we only have to look around the state to see some real (ongoing) horror stories. I'd say we're lucky, except that it is clearly not luck but the product of a lot of hard work, for which we say "job well done."