MIDDLEBURY — Addison Central Supervisory Union directors and teachers have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract to cover the 2013-14 academic year. Terms of the deal will be made public once it is formally ratified by ACSU teachers and the nine separate school boards that govern the district.
Both sides have been working hard to negotiate a new pact before the current one expires on June 30. Officials have also wanted to have a settlement in place to make for an easier transition for a new ACSU superintendent. The ACSU board recently launched its fourth effort to find a successor to Superintendent Gail Conley, who will be stepping down on June 30.
Conley said the one-year deal will give negotiators additional time to hammer out a more long-term agreement with teachers in the ACSU’s seven elementary schools and Middlebury Union middle and high schools. The ACSU schools serve students in the towns of Bridport, Cornwall, Middlebury, Ripton, Salisbury, Shoreham and Weybridge.
The current ACSU teachers’ contract is a four-year deal that was ratified in May of 2011. It retroactively covered the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 academic years, along with the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. It placed, for the first time ever, all of the more than 200 ACSU teachers under a single contract and a common salary schedule. Previously, teachers negotiated separately through one of three unions: The Middlebury Educators Association, the Addison Central Educators’ Association and the Middlebury Elementary Teachers Association.
Alyce Schermerhorn, an art instructor at Mary Hogan Elementary School and the chief negotiator for the ACSU teachers, said she and her colleagues will vote on the new contract Feb. 7.
Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected].