Teachers from the district came out to the July 24 Board of Education meeting to voice their concern over the lack of contracts for the upcoming school year.
“We just want to teach,” Christopher Gwin, a teacher at the high school, said. “We deserve a fair and equitable settlement for our efforts.”
Gwin went on to present his feelings about the importance of the cooperation between the teachers, administration and the parents, which he called the “collaborative triangle.”
“The triangle cannot exist without the hard work of the teachers, who work to enable student success,” he said.
The teachers provided a united front and many of them reiterated the “collaborative triangle” metaphor, supporting Gwin’s claim that without the teachers, the district could not be as successful.
“It is the job of the teachers to give the students a foundation for success,” Sharon Stokes, a teacher at the high school, said. “We’ve done that and the numbers speak for themselves.”
The numbers Stokes referenced were the amount of students who received scholarships during the past school year.
According to Stokes, the Haddonfield Memorial High School class of 2014 received 180 scholarships totaling $287,000. With renewing four-year scholarships, the amount of money received by the class of 2014 will total $497,000.
“This is just one example, but it shows just how successful the district has been,” she said.
Many of the teachers also brought up the national and state ranking of the high school, which has been ranked 15th in the state and in the top one percent in the nation.
With all this success, the teachers were optimistic about the future, but voiced their concern that without a settlement, the future isn’t certain.
“If we cannot reach a settlement before the school year, many of the teachers futures will be up in the air,” Gwin said. “In order for the teachers to be successful, we have to rely on the collaborative triangle and that starts with our contracts.”
Board President Glenn Moramarco supported the teacher’s claims.
“The teachers and administrators have done a wonderful job in a tough time in the state,” he said. “We are going to do everything we can to reach an agreement with the teachers before the summer is over.
“There will be a negotiation between the teachers and the board in the next month at some point and we look forward to that meeting.”
In other news:
- The board approved the purchase of two buses to replace buses that have passed the legal limit of 15 years of service.
- The board reported that summer projects, including an emergency roof repair at the high school, repaving the high school parking lot and a new card entry system for the high school are either completed or in progress.
- The next Board of Education meeting will take place on August 28 at 7:30 p.m.
