Teachers Set to Vote on Contract

Article taken from The Portsmouth Daily Times, Saturday, October 11, 2003, pp. 1 & 8.

MINFORD -

Minford school teachers will meet Tuesday afternoon to decide whether to accept a three-year labor contract with the school board.

On Wednesday, the board and the Minford Educational Association reached a tentative agreement on the contract, which for a 3-percent salary increase for the next three years for about 100 teachers. The previous contract expired July 31.

"I feel positive and I feel the teachers are satisfied," association president Jackie Scott said.

She said along with the salary increase, other issues such as teacher evaluation criteria were agreed upon. The two sides spent much of the negotiating sessions discussing a cost-of-living salary increase and benefits.

"But when you get down to it, salary was one of the biggest concerns for everyone," Scott said.

The teachers and board have met eight times during the past few month, Scott said, but it took federal mediator Earl Leonhardt to help the sides to agree. One of the sessions lasted about seven hours, but Wednesday's took only a couple hours.

"We were close by then," Scott said. "We just needed to come to the agreement then, and we did. We tried to settle it without the mediator, but it's in our contract that we can us a mediator."

She said despite long negotiations and the use of the mediator, there are no hard feelings between the teachers and school board. Superintendent Dennis Meade agreed.

While Scott said she was confident teachers would ratify the contract, there is always a chance they might not.

"Then we'd just start over, I guess," she said. "I certainly hope that doesn't happen though."

JEFF BARON can be reached at (740) 353-3101, Ext. 236