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School Officials, Teachers Union in Accord on New Contract

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

* The teachers union has ratified the tentative agreement, which still awaits approval by the full School Committee.

* * *

LITTLE COMPTON - The teachers union and school officials reached a tentative agreement for a new, three-year contract late yesterday. Teachers will attend orientation today and the first day of classes at the Wilbur & McMahon Schools will go on as scheduled tomorrow.

"We have a tentative agreement that was ratified by the membership" last night at about 6:30, said Betsy Bottari, president of the Little Compton Teachers Association. "I think it is a really fair and equitable contract, and both sides are satisfied."

Bottari said the School Committee must decide whether to ratify the agreement at its next meeting. But she said the signs are good given that some of the school district's negotiators in the contract talks were School Committee members. She said the negotiating teams of both sides came to the tentative agreement at around 5:15 p.m., then the teachers union went on to ratify it.

Bottari and Schools Supt. Harold G. Devine Jr. yesterday each declined to discuss the details of the contract because the full School Committee has not yet met to consider ratifying it.

Unlike Johnston, where talk of a teachers' strike loomed over negotiations, there had been no mention publicly of the Little Compton school opening being affected, regardless of whether a contract was worked out in time. Still, the fact that the current contract is due to lapse tomorrow, the first day of school, raised some unknowns.

School officials and the teachers union representatives went back and forth much of yesterday. Negotiations began at 10 a.m., and School Committee members, the superintendent and the School Committee's lawyer shuffled more than once between the superintendent's first-floor office in the school to the second- floor classroom where teachers union representatives met with them.

Information was scarce as the afternoon wore on. School Committee chairman Darrell Harvey would not characterize the status of negotiations.

"There is really nothing that I can say," Harvey said yesterday afternoon while negotiations were ongoing.

Last week, Bottari said she had indications things could work out. She said contract negotiations had started a little later this year because the Little Compton school system has a new administration, having hired Devine as superintendent.

Another contract, for support staff such as custodians and teachers' aides, expired on June 30 and remains unresolved. John Osborne, president of the union representing support staff, said last week that the situation was "not well" between the union and the school administration, and the two sides had not met for weeks. It was not clear yesterday if that will be resolved.

Still, Osborne said last week that he expected support staff would work and that there would not be interruptions.

The two contracts represent teachers and support personnel at Wilbur & McMahon Schools. More than 300 students in kindergarten though grade eight are expected to begin the new school year tomorrow.

Little Compton sends its more than 100 high schoolers to Portsmouth High School.

Staff writer Michael P. McKinney can be reached at (401) 277- 7447 or at mmckinne @projo.com

Source: Providence Journal

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