Statement of the School Committee, via the Chair, 11/30/22

We would like to provide an update to the community on several collective bargaining priorities.

On Tuesday, November 29, the School Committee voted to approve a negotiated contract with the District’s crossing guards (traffic supervisors unit). Once that unit votes to ratify that contract, it will immediately go into effect. We are grateful for the hard work and dedication of our crossing guards and for the care and safety they provide to our students and their families.

We are eager to settle contracts with our teachers (Unit A) and paraprofessionals (Unit C). The Committee values and respects our educators, and we have been making good faith efforts to reach agreements over the last ten months. 

At present, the Committee believes we are very close to a comprehensive agreement with the paraprofessionals. The offer under consideration, which is the result of collaborative provisions from both sides of the bargaining table, would substantially increase compensation through new pay scales. It would also reflect provisions that we hope will support the important work that these vital staff members do in service to some of our most vulnerable students. We hope that this contract will be settled soon. 

We have also made several strong offers to the teachers unit, including requesting and receiving additional funding from the City of Melrose to try to settle this contract. These salary increases, if agreed to, would represent a substantial investment by the City, over and above what the School Committee had originally budgeted for this contract. We heard from the community that they wanted to see additional funding brought to bear, and we have worked with the City to do so in a responsible way. We have put forward compensation offers, through cost-of-living and market adjustments that, if agreed to, combined with step and lane increases, would result in increases for most teachers ranging from 4% to 19% in the first year of the contract. The Committee's offers also include: reduced after school meeting hours for teachers, more preparation and common planning time at the elementary level, an additional Noon-release day, as well as important updates to the contract language to enable better collaboration between District leadership and educators.

Given the revenue that we have available in the City, we believe these packages are the very best we can offer to the educators at this time. We are hopeful that these contracts will be settled soon.