Newton schools remain closed Tuesday as teacher strike stretches on

The Newton teachers strike will continue for a third day after contentious contract negotiations failed to reach consensus again Monday, canceling classes for the district’s 12,000 students Tuesday.

NTA representatives said the sides negotiated for over five hours through Monday, at a press event at 7:30 p.m. Monday. The union said they gave the School Committee a Memorandum of Agreement during the negotiations and if it had been signed, the teachers would have returned to school on Tuesday.

The 2,000-member union voted to go on strike Friday after nearly five months without a contract.

Despite stating they would notify parents and post regarding school cancellations by 7:30 p.m. on the Newton Public School and School Committee pages each day, there were no updates posted the pages by 8:30 p.m. Monday night. Mayor Ruthanne Fuller called the ongoing cancellation “frustrating and deeply disappointing” in her statement Sunday night.

The NTA will be fined heavily for every day the strike continues now. At a hearing Monday, a Middlesex Superior Court ruled the NTA will be fined $25,000 if the strike continued through 8 p.m. Monday. The fines will double for each subsequent day the teachers remain on strike, increasing to $50,000 if the strike lasts through 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Newton South High School teacher Ryan Normandin said the NTA “knew these fines were coming” and “are prepared” at a press event Monday night. NTA President Mike Zilles emphasized the union will not return without a fair contract, regardless of the fines.

Normandin laid out several key disputes between the negotiating teams, including adding a social worker to every elementary and middle-school building, increasing paid parental leave to 60 days and changing language so the leave is not only entitled to “primary” parents, and increasing wages, especially for unit C professionals like teacher’s assistants and behavior therapists.

The starting pay for a unit C professional is listed on the Newton Public Schools website as just over $28,000 a year for full-time employees under the most recent contract.

The most recent Jan. 21 offer from the School Committee posted to the NPS website includes a 7-8% raise — varying based on tenure — for unit C professionals over three years. The most recent ask in the NTA’s 37-page Memorandum of Agreement posted Monday included a 20% raise over 4 years.

The city representatives and NTA have sparred over whether the city has enough money to support the proposals, with the union arguing the 3.5% cap on the schools budget growth is “arbitrary.”

“The last two years there have been $3 million budget cuts from the Newton Public Schools budget while the city ran budget surpluses of $29 million each year,” said NTA spokesperson Ashley Raven. “So the NTA is saying yes, the money is there. Mayor Fuller needs to release it.”

Related Articles

Local News |


Newton schools close Monday as teacher strike continues

Local News |


Newton teachers face risk of being fined for going on strike; judge orders cease-and-desist

Local News |


Boston school teacher hit with chair by student, rushed to ER

Local News |


Newton teachers vote to go on strike; students out of class Friday

Raven said the union has “huge gratitude” for the support from parents and the community, citing all the food, coffee, hand warmers and toe warmers donated throughout the cold days.

MassGOP Chairwoman Amy Carnevale also got involved Monday, calling on Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler to intervene “to get our children back in the classroom while this contract dispute is negotiated.”

“My message to the parents is we understand how challenging this is and how much of a disruption this is,” Normandin said. “And we’ve seen the kinds of harm that our kids have been going through for years. And to go back before we have a fair contract would just be to do more harm to our students and our families. We can’t do that.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Previous post Production on a new murder mystery film began Monday in St. Paul
Next post Editorial: The 78 is a fabulous site for White Sox baseball and much else