Members of the Haddonfield Education Association returned to the Board of Education during the board’s Thursday, Sept. 28 meeting to ask the board to bring negotiations to an end.
For the second time this month, the Haddonfield Education Association returned to Haddonfield Memorial High School’s library to ask the Board of Education to bring an end to contract negotiations by coming to the table with an offer that HEA co-president William Usher described as “more palatable to both sides.” Dressed in black, the HEA members held signs saying, “We deserve a fair and equitable contract” at last Thursday’s board meeting.
Board President Adam Sangillo launched into the hot topic of discussion by providing those in attendance with an update on the state of negotiations following the board and HEA’s decision to file for impasse on Wednesday, Sept.13. Sangillo said following the HEA’s attendance at the board Sept. 14 work session, both sides met again rather than just waiting on a mediator.
Sangillo said the board also looked into the rollout of the educational assistants’ new payroll procedures, which had education assistants wondering why they had not received their first paycheck in early September, Sangillo said.
Sangillo explained there was a change to the law requiring part-time employees to be paid hourly. EAs could previously be paid in advance for time worked when they were on salary, but under the new law, employees paid hourly cannot. For that reason, EAs were not paid prior to the start of school as they had been previously. Sangillo acknowledged the district should have done more to convey this information to EAs. He said since the last board work session, the EAs were apologized to in a letter, and the district also met with them to explain the new procedures.
“There was a change in the way the pay was structured,” Sangillo said. “We dropped the ball on communication. We owned it.”
Jamie Vermaat, past co-president and current head contract negotiator for the HEA, took to public comments to question the expanding cost of running the district’s business office. Vermaat said having looked through past board agendas, she found that from 2012 to 2014, the district had one business administrator who was paid $110,000 a year. In the 2017–2018 school year, the board has a business administrator, assistant board administrator, accounting manager, mentor and part-time business office consultant, making the total cost of running the business office, excluding secretaries, $356,700 this year.
Vermaat handed the data she compiled to the board. She then questioned how after telling the public they need to cut EAs and stipends during the budgetary process, the district has the funding to expand the business office.
“While the board has tripled the cost of running a business office, many employees have found responses to their inquiries to be slow, data inaccurate and the treatment of their employees to be, at times, unprofessional,” Vermaat said.
HMHS english teacher Julia Smart said she was saddened to learn the HEA had been given late and inaccurate data during the negotiation process.
“I’m shocked and saddened by the fact that we feel — or we now know — that the board of education is not necessarily truthful or has not been truthful with us for us to trust the process of negotiations,” Smart said.
Board member Glenn Moramarco took the opportunity to acknowledge there was a mistake in the data the HEA received. He said as soon as the HEA brought the mistake to their attention, they looked into it and found that part-time employees had accidentally reported as full-time and this error was then explained and corrected.
“This board has never knowingly given false information to the HEA,” Moramarco said.
English teacher at HMHS Kimberly Dickstein said the conditions of construction have been especially hard on teachers. She became emotional as she described working in a classroom where the thermometer has been ripped out of the wall and the temperatures have been oppressively warm with the most recent heat wave. She wondered who is looking out for the teachers’ health and wellness during construction.
“The tenor of these negotiations does not make me feel valued,” Dickstein said.
Deirdre Benjamin, a Haddonfield resident and mother to three J. Fithian Tatem Elementary School students, brought up an incident in which her daughter’s third-grade classroom was moved to the library due to ongoing construction. Benjamin said the class was told they only had a few minutes to move from their classroom to the library for the remainder of the day due to what her daughter informed her was movement from a “wrecking ball.” Benjamin was one of several in attendance to note that due to construction, teachers have repeatedly spent hours moving classrooms.
Later in the evening, Rob Notley of New Roads Construction provided a construction update, clarifying there was never a wrecking ball at Tatem. He said it was actually a small crane picking up steel to be set at the back of Tatem, and in the interest of safety, the classrooms neighboring the work were moved. Notley said both the foundation at the back of Tatem and the walls had less structural integrity than crews expected.
“Tatem has been a particularly difficult building,” Notley said. “The structural conditions of the walls have been much worse than we anticipated. The good news is we’re fixing it. The bad news is it’s taking more time than hoped.”
Both Sangillo and Notley also addressed concerns about air quality due to construction dust. Sangillo said the district conducted air quality tests earlier in the month, and the district passed every test. He said the results of the testing will be posted on the district’s website in the coming days for both the teachers and public to see.
“We’re not going to have people in an unsafe environment,” Sangillo said. “That’s not just negligent. It’s illegal.”
Sangillo said the construction has been the right thing to do but acknowledged it has placed an added strain on teachers. Despite the strain of construction and ongoing negotiations, he said there is no question in his mind, however, that the contract will get settled.
Usher said he believes since the board’s last work session, both sides have made “small, incremental steps,” but called for more of a sense of urgency on the board’s end.
“We are tired of waiting,” Usher said. “We want the professional, collegial working environment we deserve. We want a contract commensurate with our dedication, effort, skills and accomplishments.”
The next Board of Education meeting will take place in the HMHS library on Thursday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m.
