School in Peters Township will begin Sept. 6
Classes for the 4,000-plus Peters Township School District students will begin Sept. 6, the day after Labor Day.
The start of the 2016-17 school year was pushed back a week because of the $5.6 million renovation at McMurray Elementary School and not the three-week-long work stoppage by teachers last fall. To complete the final phase of construction at the school, the renovation of the common areas, district officials have said the building needs to be empty of students.
The last day of school for the district is Thursday, June 23. Seniors are scheduled to graduate June 10.
“Construction is moving along as planned,” Jeannine French, district superintendent, said. “We have just completed Phase 8 and all classrooms are now complete. The next phase will focus on the hallways, which is challenging because this work has to be done when students and staff are not there. We’re hoping to be done by August when the students and the staff return for the new school year.”
The district and its 285 teachers agreed last week to a new labor contract, retroactive to Aug. 31, the first day of school for the 2015-16 school year. The new pact expires June 30, 2021.
Additional details of the approved contract include a salary scale freeze with step movement only for the first two years of the contract for steps 2 through 16, and $500 and $750 increases for Step 17, the highest salary tier, in the first two years of the agreement.
The average teacher’s salary in Peters is more than $70,000.
Under the expired contract, the average annual salary increase is $2,100. The new agreement calls for an annual increase of $1,100.
With the former agreement, a teacher with a bachelor’s degree on Step 1 at the end of the existing contrasct would earn $45,900, while the new agreement calls for a salary of $49,900 by the sixth year. If the teacher on Step 1 has a master’s, the starting salary would have been $52,350 by the sixth year.
A teacher’s with a bachelor’s degree at Step 17 would earn $105,524 by the final year of the contract. And if the teacher a Step 17 has a graduate degree, then by the sixth year the salary would be $107,933, according to information from the district.
“There are a lot of great things happening across the district, and it’s a relief for all of us to be able to focus on those efforts,” French said.