West Hempstead teachers rally for contract settlement

It’s been a year and nearly three months since the West Hempstead school district’s contract with the West Hempstead Educators Association expired. It’s been six months since the Board of Education declared an impasse after several failed attempts to negotiate a contract. It’s been nearly four months since the board met with WHEA and a state mediator. It’s been about a month since the school year began on Sept. 7, and about a week since a hundred teachers marched back and forth along Cornwell and Hempstead avenues in protest.

What it’s been, according to WHEA President Barbara Hafner, is too long.

“We are making the community, the parents aware that this is year two of not having a settled contract,” Hafner told the Herald. “We’re looking to sit at the table and get this done. We say two years is too long. And we’re trying to making this community aware of where we are as far as not having a settlement.”

The board was expected to hold its second mediated session with WHEA on Tuesday, Sept. 28. The plan, for Hafner, was “to get it done.”

The school board president did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

Hafner was adamant that the board take action. She hoped to see it take place during the Sept. 28 meeting. The purpose of the rally, she said, was to spread awareness and further the chances of resolving the matter.

“Our kids come into our classrooms, they go home, they’re happy. We’re doing a great job with our students and we’re doing these rallies simply to make this community aware that it’s not business as usual anymore,” Hafner said. “Yes, it’s business as usual for our students because we care about what we do in our classroom, but we need to have parents pick up the phone and tell this board of education, ‘Let’s get this done.’”

When asked whether she thought the rallies could be perceived as counterproductive, Hafner said, “We don’t like doing this anymore than parents like seeing it. We don’t like having to waste our time walking picket lines, making fliers to let people know this is where we are.”

She went on to say, “We are an outstanding staff that works diligently to do the best we can for our students. We work side by side with this community doing great things for the students for our community and yet it’s like … it doesn’t matter if there’s a settlement or not and there should be a settlement.”

Based on previous conversations with school board members and administrators, it’s clear that settling the issue does matter — to all parties. But Hafner said that’s not clear to her and she doesn’t know what the board is doing.

“Whether it’s a tough economy or not, we expect a settlement. And the only way you can have a settlement is when you have a dialogue between the two sides,” Hafner said. “Yeah, we don’t agree on everything, but we need to sit down to figure out how are we going to agree.”

Check out next week’s Herald for an update on the scheduled Sept. 28 session.

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