By JOSEPH KELLARD
The board last week voted to extend the four-year contract for teachers by two years, from June 2005 to June 2007. While the terms of the original contract remain in effect, the expanded contract calls for a continued 3.5 percent yearly salary increase.
"All we negotiated was money," said Leslie Krasnoff, president of the OFT.
"There were many changes in the contract negotiations from a few years ago," Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown explained, "but both sides felt they didn't need any changes in the contract other than salary."
Brown said the 3.5 percent figure the district and union agreed on was determined by comparison to every other school district in Nassau County. "We saw 3.5 percent as a reasonable increase based on what every other teachers group was getting," he said. "We've left everything the same except the 3.5-per-year increase. Both sides were able to live with that."
In December 2001, the district and OFT settled on a new contract after the previous one expired that June. The four-year 2002 contract proposed a 14 percent salary and "step" increase for teachers, and required teachers to work 15 minutes more each day. That contract also called on teachers to take courses on professional staff development, requiring 10 hours a year from tenured teachers and 20 hours a year from probationary teachers.
"We were supposed to start negotiating about a year from now," Brown said. "If we can avoid a long negotiation project for six months to a year, which could take energy away from where energy should be, in the classroom, we thought it would be a positive for the kids and parents."
Said Krasnoff, who originally approached the district about a contract extension, "I felt that with the economic climate in the country as such, I didn't believe it would be a good time to negotiate ... [I thought it would be good] to have another few years of peaceful coexistence and cooperation, without having any dissension that can be caused when you have a labor struggle. So we avoided it. To me it's a win-win situation, but most of all the kids win."
