Peters Township School District gets new labor pact
Kris Bergman, president of the Peters Township Federation of Teachers Local 3422, speaks during Monday’s school board meeting.
Peters Township teachers await the school board’s vote on their new contract.
Peters Township School District and its 285 teachers, who have been working without a contract since the start of the school year, have agreed to a new six-year deal, retroactive to Aug. 31.
“It’s been a long journey,” said Kris Bergman, president of Peters Township Federation of Teachers Local 3421, who received an ovation from the 25 people, all mostly teachers, who attended the May 16 school board meeting. “I am very relieved.”
The agreement, which the board ratified by an 8-1 vote – Minna Allison dissented – comes after several meetings that took place at the request of the arbitration panel, consisting of Paul Homer, a union staff representative; Gretchen Love, the district’s solicitor; and Timothy Tietze, a Chester County attorney who served as the neutral arbitrator.
Highlights of the deal include $1,200 annual salary increases for teachers on steps 2 through 16, which correspond with years of service, and $1,000 for teachers on Step 17, the highest salary tier, in the remaining four years of the contract.
The jump for teachers on the highest salary tier will be split into two parts. The first increase will take place at the beginning of the school year, while the remaining 50 percent will take place in the second half, a move that will reduce the impact on the district budget.
Contributions to existing health plans would increase by 78 percent for individuals and 65 percent for families over the life of the contract, according to information released by the district. Two additional lower-cost plans will be offered, as well. Those additional health plans are a lower cost to both the district and employees, the district said.
During the final year of the contract, the average work day for teachers will be increased to 7 hours, 45 minutes.
The average teacher’s salary in Peters exceeds $70,000 a year, the district has said.
“Both sides worked very hard to come to this agreement,” said Superintendent Jeannine French. “We know that this process has not been an easy on anyone involved, and I am grateful that we are now moving forward together,”
District teachers, whose previous contract expired at the end of August, went on strike in late October and stayed off the job for nearly a month.
That, in turn, pushed the last day of school back to June 23 for the district’s 4,000-plus students. Seniors still are scheduled to graduate June 10.
“Our goal from the start was to settle the contract in a way that was responsible to the community and fair to our teachers,” the Rev. Jamison Hardy, a school board member who was on the negotiating team, said.