Welcome to 2016

So long, 2015! Welcome to a new year!  Hope you survived the hectic holidays and managed to make it through the first week back smoothly.  Here at "negotiation central" the team has been busy trying to make good things happen.  On the 6th, we held our 3rd negotiation session.  The focus was on Article V of the contract - Teacher Hours and Workload.  Thank you to everybody who attended the information meetings and submitted suggestions via the Google Form.

At the meeting, we discussed options for having some of the instruction we provide "on the side" considered as actual class time requiring preparation, guidelines for class size, teacher reimbursement for sub work, adding the floating PD language to the contract, teacher deadlines for submitting grades into MMS, and rectifying the discrepancy concerning the LMHS dismissal time on half days.  All of these items produced lively debate and we are confident that we will meet favorable outcomes or compromise on most of the items.

There were a few additional items discussed which we hope to settle outside of the negotiation process.  As you can see, many of the proposals are still under discussion.  Some of them will have a financial impact while others effect policy decisions; hence the need for additional discussion.

Our next session will be on January 20th at 4:30 in the LMHS faculty room.  We will move on from Article V to the other items on our proposal list.  Please feel free to connect with a member of the negotiations committee if you have questions or concerns.  Also, please keep checking your email and this site as we will be soliciting additional information and guidance from membership regarding the upcoming sections of the contract to be negotiated.

On the superintendent search front, I have spoken to Andrea Wadsworth, Lee School Committe chairperson, about the interview process.  The first round of interviews will take place in executive session and will consist of the candidate and three members from the Lee School Committee and three members of the Tyringham committee.  Following this round, there will be public interviews with questions taken from the audience.  We will be represented at this forum by members of the LEA Executive Board.  I will keep you posted on the dates in case you would like to attend.

That's all I have to report right now as negotiations are really taking up the bulk of our time!  I have only heard from a few concerning the Red Cross First Aid/CPR training.  If you are interested, please let me know.

Until next time, I offer the following advice: Buy another lottery ticket and start thinking about what you could possibly do with 12 WEEKS of summer vacation.  (June 8 is looking like a possibility, people!)

Take care,

Amy