MIDDLEBURY — The Addison Central Supervisory Union board and teachers have agreed in principal on a new, four-year contract, the terms of which will be made public after ratification by all the school boards in the school district.
The new contract retroactively covers the past two years and the next two. For the first time ever, this single contract will cover all of the elementary and secondary school teachers in the seven-town ACSU.
The more-than-200 ACSU teachers continue to operate under terms of the previous pact, which expired at the end of the 2008-2009 academic year. That contract assures step salary increases (but no bump in base pay) and the same health care benefit terms for the teachers employed in the ACSU-member schools of Bridport, Cornwall, Salisbury, Ripton, Shoreham, Weybridge and Middlebury, along with Middlebury Union middle school and high school.
All three ACSU teacher unions negotiated as a single collective bargaining unit this time. Previously, the middle school and high school teachers (UD-3) had negotiated their contract separately as the Middlebury Educators’ Association (MEA). The teachers in the ID-4 school district (Middlebury) negotiated as Middlebury Education Teachers’ Association and the six other rural elementary schools negotiated as the Addison Central Educators’ Association.
Al Calzini, a UD-3 teacher and chief negotiator for the MEA, said teachers ratified the contract on April 14. The vote was not unanimous, but the terms appealed to a clear majority of the teachers, according to Calzini.
“I think the teachers are pleased with the agreement,” Calzini said.
He added both sides put in a lot of hard work to produce the contract, and were able to avoid some of the acrimony that surrounded teacher contract negotiations in other parts of the state in recent months. Addison Northeast Supervisory Union teachers came close to striking last winter following the imposition of a contract by the ANeSU board.
The Addison Independentwill report details of the new ACSU teachers contract as soon as it is fully ratified. Calzini said as of Thursday, the pact had been endorsed by roughly half of the ACSU boards.
Reporter John Flowers is at johnf@addisonindependent