School canceled Monday as Andover teachers and committee continue to negotiate
ANDOVER - As teachers and the school committee in Andover continued their negotiations, it was announced Sunday night that class would be canceled Monday.
"We're deeply disappointed, we feel that this is not a serious negotiation, that this was a tremendous waste of everybody's time today and we're upset that we can't be in school tomorrow," said Matt Bach, the president of the Andover Education Association.
The school committee said box breakfasts and lunches can be picked up for students at Bancroft Elementary School. Breakfast will be available from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and lunch will be available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Athletics and theater rehearsal will both still go on. Information about available activities for students during the day can be found on the town's website.
Both sides resumed negotiations Sunday afternoon at town hall, a day after the union said "significant progress" was made during 14 hours of talks on Saturday. The state department of labor has also sent a mediator to help with communications between both sides.
"They said you take the offer that we're putting on the table or we're going to close the schools," said Julian Giloria, the vice president of the Andover Education Association.
The teachers want better pay for instructional aides, better benefits and protected preparation time, extended recess and better paid parental leave. The town said it has offered increased salaries and wages, additional elementary school prep time and expanded paid parental leave but the teachers said they're not satisfied with the result.
"They have decided that the difference between our proposal and their proposal, which is about $260,000 is a bridge too far for them," said Bach.
The union announced their strike Thursday night and started picketing Friday, causing school to be cancelled.
"They took five hours to figure out that they could offer us a quarter of a percent more over four years and like Matt said, they paid their law firm half a million dollars since we've started negotiating with them. This is just a joke, they want to punish the community and they want to punish us," said Digloria.
The school committee told WBZ TV they cannot offer more for teachers and staff, claiming higher wages would be unsustainable for the school and force the district to reinstate bus fees, reduce sports and arts programs and even layoff employees.
"These are scare tactics, they want to scare us, they want our members to think, oh no, I'm going to lose my job, they want the community to think, oh no, I'm going to lose my kid's orchestra class. The reality is if they want to allocate the money, they can allocate the money," said Digloria.
Teachers' strikes are illegal in Massachusetts and the school committee has gone to court to shut it down.
There are more than 5,500 students in Andover Public Schools.