PRINCETON: School board, teachers union agree on two-year contract

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton School Board approved a two-year-contract with the teachers union Tuesday, ensuring labor peace through the end of the 2019/20 school year and letting both sides focus on improving the school system.
Teachers will get 2.63 percent raises, “in line” with the average for other public school districts in Mercer County, Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said at the board meeting where the extension was voted on.
He said the agreement provides an “opportunity for all of us in the district to stay focused on really meaningful and dramatic changes in teaching and learning” as opposed to getting “sidetracked by a protracted negotiations process."
Protracted negotiations were just what happened after a stalemate between the school board and the Princeton Regional Education Association lasted into 2015 before the sides finally reached a deal from 2014 to 2018.
A PREA representative was not at the meeting. But the leader of the school board thanked the union, and touched on how smooth negotiations went this time around.
“Any issues that were raised were resolved very quickly without a lot of rancor at all,” board president Patrick Sullivan said.
That the two sides were even negotiating occurred with little fanfare, until school officials announced last month they had reached a deal. Cochrane had said he “floated” the idea of an extension and the union leadership was “immediately receptive.”
School board vice president Dafna Kendal, who took part in the negotiations, said that from the start of the year, the district and the school board wanted to “nurture” their relationship with the PREA. She called the extension a “win for our community.”
“This is really a win for everyone,” fellow board member Betsy Baglio said, “especially the kids.”
The terms of Baglio, Sullivan and Kendal are all up in 2018, so getting the contract out of the way now also will remove a potentially thorny election-related issue in a year when the original deal was due to expire.
Cochrane said with this issue now in the rearview mirror, the district and its teachers can work together toward a “shared vision of what is right for our students and our community.”
“I think the adults were able to agree very quickly on taking good care of the adults, which we all want to do,” Sullivan said. “And now, we’re all focused on finding ways to make our school system more responsive to the needs of all of our children.”