The Pennridge School District and the association representing professional staff will not reach an agreement on a new contract before the current deal expires on June 30.
The next negotiating session is expected to take place in July, but a date has not been confirmed, according to the Pennridge Education Association, which represents about 500 teachers.
“The passing of this deadline is disappointing, and the association hopes the board will join us in redoubling their efforts to finalize the new contract,” wrote PEA President Lydia Ramer Hunter in an email.
Board member Joan Cullen said she was in the dark about the status of negotiations. “We have asked repeatedly to be shown the response of the teachers union to ‘the board’s’ contract proposal, but we’ve been denied that right,” said Cullen. “I say, ‘the board’s’ proposal because at least four of us were not permitted to give input into nor even see ‘the board’s’ proposal before it was made to the union. Therefore, I don’t think we can accurately label that proposal as being from the school board.
“Since we know the union’s response was delivered to the board approximately three months ago now, we can assume the board’s negotiating committee rejected the union’s response,” added Cullen. “It’s unclear to me and other board members how it’s possible for a subset of the board to reject a contract proposal without gaining consent from the full board to do so. Yet here we are.”
Pennridge teachers are working under the terms of a five-year contract approved in September 2018. It set a starting salary of $45,000 and a maximum salary of $105,233 in the final year of the deal.
Both figures, the PEA says, are the lowest in Bucks County.
According to a timeline provided by the union, the two sides began negotiating in early January. The board’s initial proposal, which included increases in employee healthcare costs and “did little to address this pay gap.”
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