After vitriolic strike, sheer glee greets restart of classes
Nearly 12,000 students return after work stoppage in Newton
NEWTON — Izzy Fink clutched a bouquet of flowers half his size as he hopped around, waiting for the doors of Lincoln-Eliot Elementary School to open for the first time after a two-weeklong teachers strike shuttered campuses.
Under his feet, chalked messages read, “Welcome back!” “We love our teachers,” and “It’s a great day to learn.”
Izzy, a first-grader, was among Newton’s nearly 12,000 students who returned to school Monday morning, following the state’s longest teacher work stoppage in three decades. He brought flowers for his teachers, whom he was eager to see again.
”I can’t wait!” he exclaimed. “I miss them. I like how I learn.”
Izzy was able to reunite with those teachers after the School Committee and the Newton Teachers Association on Friday night reached a tentative contract agreement and an accord on the transition back to school. The agreements ended the illegal strike and settled a contract that had been outstanding since the beginning of the school year.
The NTA, which represents about 2,000 educators, went on strike after 16 months of talks failed to broker a deal with the School Committee. The union voted overwhelmingly Sunday night to ratify the contract. The deal will cost the district $53 million more than the current contract and includes a 12.6 percent cost-of-living increase over four years for teachers, a larger increase for classroom aides, and a dramatic expansion of paid parental leave.
Teacher strikes are illegal in Massachusetts. In the past 20 months, six districts across the state, including Newton, have gone on strike. Teachers unions that strike can face coercive fines and even run the risk of jail time, though that hasn’t happened in the state since the 1970s.
For parents, educators, and residents, Monday marked not just a return
to classrooms but a first step toward healing their community. City and union leaders said over the weekend that it would take a long time to regain each other’s trust, but for many of the elementary students at the Lincoln-Eliot, Monday just marked the end of a slightly too long break.
Deliz Devaraj, father of second-grader Gerard, said that although his son was initially happy to have some time off, he was ready to return to learning difficult content, Devaraj said.
“He loves science and math and wants someone to challenge him,” he said. “Teachers do that here. He missed them.”
Supporters have said provisions of the agreement, like expanded parental leave and raised wages for the district’s lowest-paid workers, should benefit everyone in the district, by helping the district hold on to much-needed employees.
Critics, however, have questioned whether the benefits that teachers won in the contract were worth shutting down schools for two weeks. The weeks out of school were a bigger burden on some students. Students with disabilities particularly struggled from missing time with aides, teachers, and therapies; seniors impatiently awaited their second-term grades, needed for their college applications; winter athletes missed practices and games.
On Monday, many parents were full of praise for the teachers and just eager to get back to school.
“We’re happy the teachers got what they were able to get, and we were able to get students in school without too much delay,” Devaraj said.
Andrew Pentz said he was relieved to bring his daughter Olivia, a first-grader, back to school.
“Any longer, and we would have gone insane,” he said. “She’s not going to admit it, but she is happy to be back too.”
Outside of Lincoln-Eliot, Alex Kozyr, with his first grader Alex, said he’s “really appreciative the school is back.”
”I don’t have a side, and yet I’m really relieved we can be back at this great school,” said Kozyr, who recently moved to the United States from Ukraine.
“I hope everyone’s happy with the resolution.”
Other parents were just relieved to get their kids away from the screens that had kept them occupied while they were away from school.
“Fortnite is not good for them,” said Clary Suarez, mother of second-grader Luis Rosario and fourth-grader Edwin Rosario, although her sons were quick to say they would still be playing the online shooting game when they got home from school.
Still, Luis said, it’s good to be back.
“I can play soccer and I can play with my friends,” he said. “I miss my friends.”