VERGENNES — Teachers in the Addison Northwest Supervisory Union are once again working under a contract, after the ANwSU board of directors last week ratified a new, two-year agreement.
The new contract — which covers the period from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2012 — holds the base teacher salary steady throughout the union, and stipulates no change in the percentage of health care coverage teachers pay. It does, however, uphold already budgeted stepped increases in salary, which will provide scheduled raises to teachers with higher education levels or longer tenures.
Last month, Superintendent Tom O’Brien said these stepped increases will amount to an increase of $2 to $2.30 per hour for teachers, when averaged districtwide.
“It’s a nominal increase, but nonetheless it’s an increase,” O’Brien said at that time. He was unavailable for comment on Friday.
Negotiations on the new contract began last December. The status of the contract has been up in the air since mid-May, when ANwSU administrators and the teachers’ union, the Addison Northwest Teachers Association or ANTA, declared an impasse and sought mediation.
In August, the parties once again met, this time taking only one day to come to an agreement on the final contract. ANTA members ratified the new contract in late August, and the ratification by the ANwSU board of directors, composed of members from the ANwSU towns of Vergennes, Addison, Panton, Ferrisburgh and Waltham, was the last approval needed before the new contract could go into effect.
Kris Bristow, chair of the Vergennes Union High School board and member of the ANwSU board, said that the supervisory union board discussed the contract in executive session on Wednesday evening, and then approved it with no further comment.
Reporter Andrea Suozzo is at [email protected].