Monday, December 2, 2024
Signed, sealed, delivered: The Lawrence school district has approved the first new contract for teachers in 13 years.
At Monday’s Board of Education meeting, board President Murray Forman announced the approval of the Lawrence Teachers Association’s memorandum of agreement.
“It is my particular pleasure to make the motion to approve Roman numeral five, D, the memorandum of agreement for the contractual agreements for the teachers association,” Forman said.
When he asked for a second on the motion, Trustee Michael Hatten offered it.
Many LTA board members attended the meeting, along with Lawrence High School Principal Jennifer Lagnado-Papp and Assistant Principal Andrew Schiavo.
“Congratulations to the teachers,” Superintendent Ann Pedersen said. “. . . For everything you do every day, we are very grateful, because you serve our children, and nothing can be finer. We’re very happy to see that your contract is approved.”
The proposed contract was first announced on Sept. 24, and the details were shared with the teachers the following day, but they have not yet been made public by the district or the union.
“After 13 years working under an expired contract, the LTA and the District finally found common ground, the contract provides much needed cost-of-living increases over the next four years and in exchange, the District will have the flexibility it desired,” Rachel Kreiss, LTA president, wrote in an email. “The LTA has been assured that the top-notch education, provided to our students will not be compromised, the new contract also contains long overdue raises for coaches and extra curricular supervisors. We hope this new contract will encourage our highly qualified and professional members to remain with the District as mentors to our students on their path to becoming well rounded adults.”
The LTA, which has almost 280 members, including librarians, speech therapists and social workers, had until Sept. 30 to vote on the proposal, and members gave it their approval.
“Throughout this process, both the district and our teachers union have worked diligently together to ensure that the needs of our students, educators, and families remain at the forefront of our discussions,” Lawrence district officials said in a statement released on Sept. 24. “This contract represents an important step forward in our shared mission of providing the best possible education for our students.”
Their union’s last contract expired on June 30, 2011, and members have not received raises since then. It was the longest contract standoff in any school district in New York state history, surpassing a 12-year impasse in Buffalo that ended in 2016.
“We’re very pleased to, after all these years, finally be able to come to an agreement and bring some closure to what’s been a difficult situation for a very long time,” Adam Berlin, the LTA’s second vice president, said.
In 2018, the state Public Employment Relations Board released an 18-page report that mentioned comparable raises awarded to three other unions — the Association of Lawrence Administrators, the Lawrence Facilities Management Association and the Lawrence Public Schools Association of Counselors — as a way of urging the district to come to terms with the union.
Then, in April 2023, LTA members were joined by teachers from across Long Island and New York City as well as upstate for a march along Central Avenue in Cedarhurst. They gathered at the village’s Long Island Rail Road station and called for resolution of the negotiation stalemate, waving signs that read “Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions,” “Class size matters” and “We support Lawrence teachers.”
