A teacher strike in Marblehead is entering a new stage after mediation has failed to bring about a new contract while students begin a third week of missed classes.
The School Committee has also made its final contract offer to the Marblehead Education Foundation, School Committee Chair Sarah Fox said at a Monday news conference.
“We thought progress was being made over the weekend after face-to-face meetings were initiated late last week,” she said while reading a prepared committee statement. “However, the union seems intent on continuing its illegal strike at the expense of the children of Marblehead.”
The School Committee is now prioritizing a fact-finding process that was ordered by an Essex County Superior Court judge Sunday night after the MEA failed to end its strike that evening.
The fact-finding process means the two sides would present their cases under oath in a hearing before the fact-finder. The fact-finder would then issue a report with his or her recommendations for resolving the dispute.
Representatives of the School Committee’s bargaining team and the MEA met with the fact-finder Monday morning, but the union is not agreeing to comply with the process and “instead insisted that the factfinder serve as a mediator,” the School Committee said, noting that this would be the fifth mediator to assist in the negotiation process.
The MEA said in its own statement Monday night that both parties are redrafting their proposals and plan to meet again with the factfinder.
“The MEA made clear that no contract is possible without a return-to-work agreement that ends all legal action against individual MEA members for their involvement in the strike and prevents the district from retaliating against any Marblehead educator for participating in the fight for a fair contract,” the union said in its statement.
The state-appointed mediator in Marblehead’s negotiations canceled a contract bargaining session Monday afternoon now that the fact-finding process moves forward, Fox said.
“We will continue to comply with the court’s orders and have indicated that we are available for fact finding,” the School Committee said.
That doesn’t mean the School Committee won’t consider an updated contract offer from the MEA. But the fact-finding process will require them to attend hearings and “they can’t be two places at once,” MRA member Jennifer Schaeffner said at Monday’s press conference.
Fox and Schaeffner also said striking educators will not be paid while they strike.
“Our understanding, as communicated to us, is that it is against the law for a municipality to pay an employee who has not worked,” Fox said.
MEA members who have continued to work, specifically school custodians working with the consent of the union as it negotiates their unit’s contract, will receive paychecks.
As for the School Committee’s final offer, the proposal would raise the average salary of teachers to more than $100,000 and increase the top teacher’s salary to $113,000, surpassing the top wages in the new contract agreed upon in Gloucester Friday following a two-week long strike there.
The proposal is several thousand dollars more than the School Committee was proposing at the start of the Marblehead strike.
The committee is also offering to give lunch and bus monitors, teacher’s aides and paraprofessionals a 48-69% wage increase and to move pre-K, kindergarten, special education and chemistry lab paraprofessionals to the tutor contract with higher pay rates.
As for paid parental leave, the committee is offering 15 days of this leave paid by the district, up from a proposed 12, and added a paid sick leave bank educators can use toward time off.
The union has made some movement on its end of proposals, but it’s seeking a total 40 paid parental leave days that would be reached over a three-year period and a cost of living adjustment increase to 16%, with another 4% to be added if an override for the town’s school budget passes, which is still significantly higher than the School Committee’s proposal.
An override would need to pass to fund either proposal put forth by the two sides.
Both sides were hopeful they could come to an agreement Sunday. But a long day of negotiating left School Committee members worried for their safety, Fox said.
Teachers and community members were banging on the walls and windows of Marblehead High School and chanting Sunday as negotiations continued. They later surrounded Fox and fellow committee member Jen Schaeffner as they walked to their cars, requiring them to have a police escort to their vehicles, Fox said.
“These were teachers, these were neighbors, these were community members, people I’ve known for many, many years,” Fox said. “These are students and children, and it was very unfortunate.”
The MEA has resorted to cyber-bullying and harassment in its campaign for a new contract. The School Committee’s Monday press conference was held at a local physical therapy office, Little Harbor Fitness, and was open to members of the press only because of safety concerns, she said.
A group of two dozen teachers and community members chanted outside of the office during the news conference.
The MEA has said the School Committee is using its own harassment and intimidation tactics by listing four members of the union’s leadership teams in a contempt order filed against the union. Those members are Co-presidents Jonathan Heller and Shelly Shevory, and bargaining team leads Hannah Hood and Alison Carey.
The MEA called this an unprecedented move. But court orders filed against striking teacher unions in Beverly and Gloucester included their presidents’ names from the get-go, while Marblehead only included them in an adjusted filing last week.
“The Superior Court made clear that the Union and its top officials are in contempt of a court order mandating that the teachers return to work,” the School Committee said.
“We hope the union complies with that order so children can get back to school while we continue to negotiate final contracts.”
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com.