Teachers, board still negotiating
BY KATHY BARATTA Staff Writer

MANALAPAN - Board of Education members listened to accolades followed several times by applause and standing ovations as person after person, most of them teachers, beseeched the members of the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education to approve a new deal for the Manalapan-Englishtown Education Association (MEEA).

The MEEA's previous contract expired on June 30 and teachers have been working under the terms of that pact since then.

Teachers wearing red shirts filled the cafetorium of the Wemrock Brook School to standing-room-only capacity at the Feb. 5 meeting of the board.

Board members listened but did not comment on any of the remarks that were made by theMEEApresident, a PTApresident and several teachers.

MEEA President Ken Weber was one of the first people to address the board. Weber, a sixth-grade teacher, has taught in the district for almost 34 years and has been president of the MEEA for 12 years. He said the negotiations on a new contract that have been held thus far have been an insult to the teachers.

Noting that of the 54 school districts in Monmouth County, 47 had already settled their teachers contracts, Weber said the raise being offered in Manalapan-Englishtown was the second lowest being offered in Monmouth County.

Not every school district has a contract up for negotiations every year.

Speaking with a reporter after the meeting, Weber would not disclose much about the ongoing negotiations between the board and the MEEA. He said that so far the negotiations have failed to produce a mutually agreeable conclusion due to the percentage of the salary increase the board is willing to agree to award the teachers. Weber declined to say what the MEEA is asking for.

He said the county average for teachers union salary increases was about 4.65 percent annually.

According to Weber, he and several other teachers met on behalf of the union with a board subcommittee that is being chaired by board PresidentAnthonyManisero. He said since the beginning of the school year in September, the two sides had met three or four times without a mediator and several times with a mediator.

The most recent negotiating session was Feb. 6 andWeber said there had been no progress made. He said the next negotiations session is scheduled for April 7.

Weber said the board can afford to meet the teachers' salary increase request because the district will be saving $133,000 in teachers insurance costs for the final quarter of the 2007-08 school year due to a new state insurance plan that will go into effectApril 1, and because the district is due to receive a 14.75 percent increase in state aid for the 2008-09 school year. He said the increase amounts to $2.7 million.

Speaking at the Feb. 5 public meeting Weber told the board that the teachers "do a spectacular job, but we're not asking for a spectacular raise. This has gone beyond where it needs to go. Let's settle this."

Teacher Sandra Resnick, who lives in Manalapan, said, "Please come back with an offer commensurate with the quality of the teachers in the district."

Manisero spoke with a reporter after the Feb. 5 school board meeting. He would not discuss specific figures, but said, "We think the board offered a very fair contract for the teachers union over a four-year period. Over the last year, the five other bargaining units here settled (on contracts) with one pending, which is practically resolved."

Manisero said the other bargaining units are the district's administrative staff, the secretarial staff, bus drivers, custodial staff and custodial supervisors.

"One thing about negotiations is that both parties have to walk away feeling there was a give-and-take on both sides," he said.

Manisero said the reason why the next negotiating session has been delayed until April 7 is due to the mutual availability of the mediator and the fact-finder who are working with the board and the MEEA, and not due to either board members or the teachers' representatives being unavailable.