Belle Vernon teachers, district reach contract

The Belle Vernon Area School District and the union that represents its teachers and other staff said they have agreed to a five-year contract.

Ratification of the contract was announced in a joint statement Tuesday evening.

The Belle Vernon Area Education Association, which represents 161 teachers, nurses, counselors and education specialists in the district, had been working without a contract since June 30 when they issued a strike notice in March.

A strike was averted “after two eight hour marathon negotiations sessions” on March 11 and 12, just before schools closed due to COVID19, the statement said.

The new contract is retroactive to July 1, 2019, and runs until June 30, 2024.

“We are pleased to have secured a five-year deal that offers stability to our members,” Daneen Watson, the education association’s president, said in a statement. “We realize in these economic times that we had to help where we could financially. Our students are most important, and our team kept that as our focus.”

The education association negotiated contract language related to online learning, professional development and teacher evaluation as well as extra support for special education teachers, counselors and nurses in exchange for some monetary concessions.

Education association members will not have a salary increase for the 2019-20 school year, but they will have an average 2% increase over the final four years of the contract. Modifications were made to the union health insurance that will see premiums increase but allow members to choose between multiple plans.

The district said the negotiations served as a way to determine the long-term financial projections necessary to meet the costs of instruction for the next five years and give potential retirees a chance to plan for the future.

The district said it prioritized remaining “budget neutral” with limited cost increases over the length of the contract.

Both sides agreed to modifications in tuition reimbursement, sick leave buyout, retirement benefits and extracurricular activities, the statement said.

“It was apparent on both sides of the negotiations table that team members understood the current and future challenges for school districts, and that the fair and appropriate completion of the negotiations process was necessary to help keep the focus on the long-term academic and financial success of the district,” Belle Vernon Superintendent Michele Dowell said in a statement.