When members of our Chapter representing Regional School District #8's non-certified workers spoke out at last week's school board meeting, their call for fairness was
echoed by parents and co-workers. And though the Board of Education refused to reverse their
vote to reject a contract for our members, local media coverage since has exposed these officials as out of touch with the workers who make a quality education possible for students in Andover, Hebron and Marlborough.
More than two dozen members of Chapter I47, which represents the assistant bookkeeper, maintenance workers, office staff, custodians, and paraprofessionals working in RHAM High and Middle Schools,
turned out for the board meeting. We passed out
our informational leaflets to parents, residents, and other school faculty as they arrived to make sure they knew which officials had said "no" to a fair contract for the district's non-certified workers.
Several members took the opportunity to address the Board directly during opening "public comments," including Chapter Bargaining Team member Jackie Skillings.
Her prepared statement is a thorough indictment of the school board's failure to respect the district's non-certified workers.
Joining her was Chapter member Maureen Brancato, who read a
letter she mailed to members of the school board after they voted down a tentative agreement that reflected their own proposals last month.
Several additional members spoke, and they were followed by a string of parents, teachers, and other school faculty who demanded the Board of Education treat these workers with the respect they deserve. Check out
pictures from the meeting at our "Photo Gallery."
The local press was there, and several reporters remained until school officials emerged from a lengthy executive session at 10:30 PM to announce they would
not be taking any further action on our members' contract. This despite the overwhelming sentiment of local residents who urged them to reconsider and take another vote.
The
first news article to appear was in Wednesday's edition of the Willimantic Chronicle. A similar
version of the story also appeared at the online source Hebron Today that afternoon.
Thursday's Journal Inquirer
featured a lengthy article that lead with our consideration of legal action against the school board. A detailed
story on the meeting in this week's edition of the Rivereast quotes Jackie from her statement, and echoes questions raised by the Journal Inquirer about the sincerity of school officials to achieve any sort of agreement at all.
Our members' efforts also made the cover of this week's Hebron-Columbia
edition of the Reminder News. In addition to quoting Jackie and Maureen, the print and online versions of the article feature photos of our members in action.
With arbitration hearings scheduled to begin in December, there is still time for the Board to stop posturing and approve the
tentative agreement ratified by our members in September.
Hebron, Andover, or Marlborough residents should
contact the board representatives for their town who were absent or voted NO the first time around. and tell them that they may have overlooked the engine that keeps RHAM schools running once, but they should reverse course before losing local tax dollars to lawyers:
Posted by:
Matt OConnor on 10/27/2009 at 12:11:00 PM