By Nick Buglione
Dressed in black, wielding signs and blowing whistles, scores of teachers protested outside the Salisbury Center before the meeting, as they did numerous times last year.
Teachers have been without a contract since their previous five-year deal expired on Aug. 31, 2004, and a year¹s worth of meetings with a state Public Employment Relations Board mediator have yielded few results.
During the standing-room-only meeting, concerns were raised that the prolonged talks have already damaged the district¹s reputation and quality of education. ³The district has treated the teachers with disrespect,² said Marcy Levinson, a fourth- and fifth-grade Quest teacher in McVey and Parkway elementary schools. Quest classes are designated for high-ability students. ³The managing of this situation has been far more demeaning and disrespectful [than it has been in the past].²
A veteran teacher, Levinson has taught through at least five previous contract negotiations, and has never had to wait this long for a new deal to be reached. It has had a devastating effect on teacher morale, she said, and the experience has forced many younger teachers to look for work in other school districts.
A week before the meeting, in a last-ditch effort to avoid moving to fact-finding, the next step in the state-facilitated negotiation process, the school district distributed a memo to teachers offering a new three-year contract. ³There is a proposal out there, and that is where we¹ll leave that,² said Debbie Coates, president of the Board of Education. ³We value our teachers and think it¹s a fair proposal.²
The East Meadow Teachers Association, which expressed its desire to end mediation and begin fact-finding at the last collective bargaining meeting on Sept. 15, roundly rejected the proposal. Though the school district promised to raise salaries over the next two years and compress the raise schedule, John Gallagher, union president, characterized the proposal as a ploy designed to get teachers concerned about the fact-finding process and break their resolve.
In fact-finding, both sides submit their arguments on specific issues stalling negotiations to a state-appointed representative, who then recommends solutions for each issue. This can be a time-consuming process, however, and doesn¹t always result in a new contract.
With both sides far from reaching an agreement, parents and students have grown increasingly concerned about the situation. Students say they are starting to feel the effects of the prolonged negotiations. Melissa Schachter, a senior at W.T. Clarke High School who is applying to colleges, said it¹s hard to get letters of recommendation from teachers. ³Due to this contract dispute, many teachers have refrained from giving these recommendations,² she said. ³The student-teacher relationship has deteriorated.²
Zack Weber, an East Meadow High School senior, said East Meadow teachers do a great job and should be duly compensated. ³Our test grades are in the top 10 percent, but our teachers¹ salaries are in the bottom 20 percent,² he said.
While East Meadow teachers receive starting salaries that are similar to those in other districts, it takes them 36 years to reach maximum pay, and the maximum doesn't compare to other districts, teachers say.
Bill Alderman, whose son attends East Meadow High School, said the district has been spending money wastefully -- money that could be given to the teachers to resolve this dispute. ³I live across the street from Barnum Woods [Elementary School], and I watched as people paid for them to rip out perfectly good hedges from the side of the school,² he said. ³There is a lot of waste that goes on at that school. If you looked into it, the money would be there for the teachers.²
Comments about this story? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
