The Butler Area School Board has approved a new contract with teachers. Al Vavro was one of the members of the board’s negotiating committee, “Obviously this was a compromise. It’s not exactly what we wanted and it’s not exactly what they wanted. I think that we understand the implications financially and yes, we will have to make decisions based on that. But teachers are our greatest educational resource and we if we don’t have quality people, it doesn’t matter what we do.”
At a Special Meeting noon Friday, the board approved a new five-year collective bargaining agreement between the Butler Area School District and the Butler Education Association. The contract includes an average annual salary increase of 2.7% with maximum teacher pay increasing by a total of 3% over the term of the contract.
This contract makes a change to healthcare with the district participating in a healthcare consortium instead of a self funded insurance program. This will be the Allegheny County School Health Consortium which is the same group that services BC3 employees.
This contract will also create 30 minutes of common planning time on both Tuesdays and Thursdays for the purpose of curriculum development, data analysis, and professional development. Finally, the new agreement modifies early retirement details and incentives.
Board member Bill Halle cast a vote against the contract, “In my mind, we still have not impacted that 30% of kids who can’t read. We still have not impacted the 20% of the kids who can’t do math. We still haven’t impacted the number of dropouts that we have.”
The BEA has already voted to approve the contract for its 486 members. It will take effect July 1st, 2018 and continue through June 30, 2023.
Written by Ryan Saeler
