BEVERLY, MA — Delayed high school graduation and school on vacations and the weekends are all on the table as the Beverly School Committee mulls scenarios to make up the seven school days already lost to the ongoing teachers’ strike.
School Committee Chair Rachael Abell noted that the days will have to be made up to reach the state-mandated 180 days during the school year with all the time missed coming before possible snow days this winter.
“We are already facing difficult decisions ahead about delaying graduation for seniors or using time off in February, April, or on weekends,” Abell said.
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The sides were set to continue talks on Tuesday after mixed signals about how much progress was made on Monday and a joint rally among teachers’ unions from Beverly, Gloucester and Marblehead set for the State House steps on Tuesday morning.
While Abell expressed home for a “breakthrough” on Monday night after she said the School Committee made movement on wage increases and a fourth year of a deal for paraprofessionals, she note that “the (Beverly Teachers Association’s) press conference at the end of the day (Monday) signaled that they remain unwilling to move from the same benchmark demands that have been submitted to the Committee since the onset of negotiations and have actually increased their compensation demands over the last week.”
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Abell previously said the sides were about $14.4 million apart on deal proposals, including $4 million for paraprofessionals.
“The truth is this,” BTA co-President Julia Brotherton said on Monday night. “We are really not that far apart on wages. We largely have agreement on the first few years, especially on the teachers’ contract. The union is committed to solving the poverty wages paid to our paraprofessionals. But these educators make up a very small total of the almost $75 million school budget.”
She said the School Committee’s paraprofessional offer was “not nearly enough to settle this contract and end this strike.”
A parent-organized student and family march drew more than 1,000 participants in support of the teachers on Monday.
Abell said negotiations wrapped up at about 8 p.m. on Monday and were set to resume late Tuesday morning.
“We are hopeful that they will provide a timely response (to the paraprofessional offer) today so we can make significant progress well before considering closing schools for an eighth day on Wednesday,” Abell said.
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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