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SALEM, MA — As Salem teachers celebrated wage increases, paid family leave and more class preparation time provisions in the new three-year collective bargaining agreement agreed to late last week, additional aspects of the deal include a more uniform school day across the district and pre-Labor Day starts to the school year beginning next fall.
Superintendent Steve Zrike outlined some of those aspects of the deal during his Facebook Live session with the school community ahead of the first day of school for most of the district on Wednesday.
The new standard school days will result in a longer day for many of the district’s elementary school students after it has been as short as 6 hours, 5 minutes for some schools.
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The new elementary school day will be 6 hours, 30 minutes, with the standard middle school day 6 hours, 45 minutes, and the standard high school day 6 hours, 50 minutes.
“There will be some shifts in their schools in their current times,” Zrike said. “It means a fuller day and hopefully we can provide some of the academic and social-emotional experiences that they don’t currently have in the shortened-day school.”
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Zrike said the new first day of school will be “typically the Thursday before Labor Day” after provisions in the previous teacher contract delayed the openings until after Labor Day each year.
He said student-led conferences and additional feedback throughout the school year are also part of the new deal.
“Our young people win when we take care of the adults who work in our system,” Zrike said, “and also provide experiences that are positive for our young people. This is generally a strong contract and sends a powerful message of our commitment to our most valuable resources — our educators who are in front of the kids.”
The School Committee said in a statement following the tentative agreement late Thursday that while they believe the wage increases — which they said amount to 4.25 percent in the first year and 19 percent over three years for most teachers as well as paraprofessional pay increases to become competitive across the North Shore — are warranted, they will mean the need for future cuts to some services and programs.
“They will necessitate some challenging fiscal choices in the upcoming years,” Zrike reiterated on Tuesday. “We will be in touch and communicating with the public about what those shifts and decision points have to be.”
(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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