Newton School Committee News
January 16, 2024
January 21, 2024
Dear NPS Families,
Today, the Massachusetts Superior Court issued an injunction ordering the NTA to publicly state by 3pm on Sunday, January 21, 2024 that the strike has ended. The injunction further ordered employees to return to work on Monday.
The School Committee and NTA held a mediation session today at the Newton Education Center. At noon, both parties spent time with a new state mediator separately before any information was shared.
We share the following details about our session today:
The School Committee Chair, negotiations team and administrative leadership have been at the Education Center since this morning prepared to negotiate and are expecting to meet until 8pm this evening. As shared previously, we had offered to meet with the NTA at any time over the past two weeks.
Because we are working with a state mediator, each party works in separate rooms and the mediator moves between the rooms.
To lay the groundwork for this new phase of negotiations, we suggested an in-person meeting with the NTA team to ensure everyone was working with the same set of facts. We believe this is critical as there is not an agreed upon set of comparative districts or target compensation package for the Committee to meet. The NTA declined to meet in-person on this topic.
The NTA prioritized four items - teacher evaluations, tuition-free attendance for staff children, beginning of year start date, and parental leave. We responded to all four items.
The School Committee gave a proposal to the NTA on the key issues of healthcare, parental leave, and time on learning, among other issues.
We will be meeting all day tomorrow, Saturday, January 20, 2024.
We understand that there is misinformation circulating about today’s mediation. Our objective is to provide timely and accurate information. The School Committee remains focused and committed to settling the contracts. We continue to believe that the NTA strike does nothing to further negotiations and only harms our students.
Sincerely,
Newton School Committee
