Negotiations for a successor agreement to our members' current contract, which expired in July of 2008, have dragged on for more than a year. We declared an impasse after the State Board of Mediation failed to move the Board's representatives to accept our proposals for equitable wage increases and professional development. The first arbitration hearings are scheduled for early June.

Our members, who are paraprofessionals, school bus drivers, instructional assistants, library aides, therapist assistants, and administrative assistants, came to voice their concerns about the Board's ongoing failure to invest in the school's non-certified workforce. The community support leaflet we passed out to parents, teachers, and Board members before the meeting helped deliver our message; investing in our paraprofessionals is an investment in the education of the Sterling Community School's K-8 students.

The lack of professional development in the current and previous contracts has enabled the Board to depress wages for the school's paras and support staff for years. The Reminder News reporter even cites the regional wage comparisons chart our Bargaining Team members prepared for current contract talks, which shows that even the most senior paras working in Sterling are at the very bottom of the economic scale in Eastern Connecticut.

Our members hoped that by raising our issues publicly, it might move the Board to accept our proposals before the first hearing. We believed that if local taxpayers knew that professional development and fair wages would actually cost less than paying lawyers' fees for arbitration, they would put pressure on the Board to come back to the table.

That was the point made by Council 400 leader Don Gladding, who came to the meeting to speak on behalf of our Chapter's members. He explained that as the former First Selectman of neighboring Plainfield and a current Board member for the Northeast District Department of Health, he has made that calculation before, and urged Sterling's Board of Education to do the same.

With arbitration hearings scheduled for June 12, Board members need to hear from all our members living in the community, as well as local school advocates. Contact the Board and tell them to negotiate a fair agreement with their paras that preserves vital public education services without costly arbitration:

• Telephone: 860-564-4219
• Email: bboyd@sterlingschool.org (Superintendent's Office)
• Mail: Sterling Board of Education, P.O. Box 159, Oneco, CT 06373