{"id":165,"date":"2008-08-11T13:47:36","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T17:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/?p=165"},"modified":"2008-08-14T13:55:09","modified_gmt":"2008-08-14T17:55:09","slug":"new-vote-on-swanzey-teacher-pact-sept-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/2008\/08\/11\/new-vote-on-swanzey-teacher-pact-sept-9\/","title":{"rendered":"New vote on Swanzey teacher pact Sept. 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 11, 2008
\nUnion Leader<\/a><\/p>\n

SWANZEY \u2013 Teachers in the Monadnock Regional School District are one step closer to a new contract after voters at a special deliberative session on Saturday unanimously agreed to put the negotiated contract up for a special vote on September 9.<\/p>\n

Teachers in the Monadnock Regional School District have been working without a contract for three years, and in March, voters rejected another agreement between the district and the teachers’ union.<\/p>\n

However, after the March vote, signs of labor unrest within the district became apparent when several dozen teachers launched a one-day sick-out. To calm the waters, the school board and the union immediately entered into a new round of negotiations, and within a month had come up with a new contract.<\/p>\n

The district, through Attorney Paul L. Apple of Upton and Hatfield, petitioned the Cheshire County Superior Court for permission to hold a special district meeting, and on July 14, Judge Brian T. Tucker approved the district’s request. Tucker set the date of the vote for Sept. 9, also primary day in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Because the district follows official ballot voting rules (SB 2), a deliberative session had to be held 28 days prior to the September vote. The Monadnock School Taxpayers Association had attempted to squelch the deliberative session — first by filing a motion for reconsideration, which Tucker rejected, and then by filing a request for an injunction which was also denied.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, 115 people from throughout the district turned out at the high school to discuss the contract that calls for the appropriation of $680,306 to fund salaries, step increases, and other benefits. According to school board chairman Gene White, the appropriation would cost the owner of a $200,000 home an average of $118 for the first year of the contract. The tax impact would be less for the two consecutive years of the contract.<\/p>\n

Near the beginning of the session, an amendment was offered that would eliminate any early retirement benefits from the contract. After a ballot vote, the amendment was soundly defeated by a vote of 103 to 12.<\/p>\n

Following the vote on the amendment, several people took to the microphone in support of the contract.<\/p>\n

“We need to show our community support for the teachers, and we need to show our community support for public education,” said Bruce Barlow of Swanzey. “Let’s try to get this thing passed and move on.” Pete Majoy of Richmond called the Monadnock School Taxpayers’ Association to account for spreading propaganda year after year in order to defeat the teachers’ contracts.<\/p>\n

“You need to do research on these people who are organized year after year to fight the contracts,” said Majoy. “Much of this organization is people who share an ideology that is not friendly towards public schools, period.” However, school board member Jim Carney, a member of the association, said he opposed the contract because of the inclusion of benefits such as limited early retirement payments.<\/p>\n

“It is not my position that teachers shouldn’t get raises,” Carney said. “My problem is all the extra additions to it.” “We don’t hate teachers. We think you’re doing a good job,” said school board member Tim Aho, also a member of the taxpayers’ association. “Our problem is with the contract.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 11, 2008 Union Leader SWANZEY \u2013 Teachers in the Monadnock Regional School District are one step closer to a new contract after voters at a special deliberative session on Saturday unanimously agreed to put the negotiated contract up for a special vote on September 9. Teachers in the Monadnock Regional School District have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-nh","category-special-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}