Update, September 14, 2017: Burlington schools will be closed again on Friday, September 15.
All Burlington public schools will be closed Thursday as 400 city teachers begin a strike.
The announcement came after the Burlington Education Association and the Burlington School Board negotiated for nine hours Wednesday in a final effort to avoid a strike.
The board said the union rejected a three-year contract that offered 2 percent raises each year for an average total raise of $6,000 during the life of the contract. The union said it compromised on some of its salary and health care requests, but not on schedule changes, particularly for elementary school teachers.
The labor dispute will put roughly 3,600 students out of school.
Each side blamed the other for the breakdown.
The board claims it wants to work collaboratively with teachers to address uneven student achievement, but their actions say otherwise, BEA president Fran Brock said in a press release.
“Today, they had an opportunity to work with us to address the achievement gap in our elementary schools. They did not take that opportunity,” she said. “They had an opportunity to work with us to stem the exodus of teachers by reaching a deal that attracts and retains the best for our city’s students. They failed to do so. And they continued their years-long quest to institute top-down approaches that do nothing for our students.”
A strike originally was scheduled to begin Wednesday, but the sides agreed to negotiate instead. A school board statement said teachers made new demands at Wednesday’s session with mediator Ira Lobel.
“The board entered the bargaining session today understanding the primary obstacle to settlement was resolving operational issues at the high school. These issues were resolved early in today’s session. Subsequently the BEA brought additional demands,” the statement said.
It’s unclear how long the strike will last. The two sides barely averted a strike last year and ultimately agreed on a one-year contract. But the board imposed working conditions on the teachers after an agreement this year on a new contract could not be reached.
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A serious question – is there anything in the contract with the teachers or state statute that prevents the school board from bringing in replacement teachers while the regular teachers are on strike? That would definitely level the playing field if the teachers couldn’t hold the students and parents hostage by striking.
Every metric used to measure the education Burlington kids are getting has been decreasing as the salaries of those allegedly teaching them have been increasing.
Since the Statewide test scores have, once again, fallen from last year, NEA logic only dictates that the teachers should be rewarded even more for the defective products they are producing
Factoring in the cost of living, Vermont is the third lowest state in the country for what they pay teachers.
Seems liked they go through this every year, teachers are money hungry and don’t take the kids into consideration about them having to make the days up during vacation, they could have had a strike before school started but they don’t think of things like that!! I agree they should just fire the greedy ones and hire new ones…
Can someone please explain why we can’t fire these ungrateful greedy teachers and hire replacements? Every time the School Board buckles because the teachers are fine striking, they know they’ll get paid after the strike and they make so much money that they can afford to strike. I’d be happy to volunteer to teach the kids for free until replacements are found.
Since the two percent raise isn’t enough for them, please just fire them or negotiate a contract where a teacher can be fired. What a concept!
$86 million/3600 students = $24,000/student.
I didn’t know that schools were bonafide businesses. I know Betsy Devos is the Secretary of Education but I certainly wasn’t aware that Vermont schools are already privatized.
Every business in America runs on a “top-down” basis, I.e. the employer manages the employee. Ms. Brock seems to think she is in charge.
Every business in America runs on a top down approach, I.e. the supervisor manages the employee. Ms. Brock seems to think she is the boss.
Hard to imagine the outcome if both parties did NOT have the best interests of kids at heart.