MARBLEHEAD, MA — Marblehead School Committee Chair Jennifer Schaeffner on Friday night fired back at the Marblehead Education Association after days of union criticisms that the School Committee was “stalling” in contract negotiations and relying on the accrued punishment of escalating court fines for the illegal strike to break the union rather than make concessions in its proposals.
“We have come to the end of the week with no agreement and a union that seems more interested in posturing than negotiating,” Schaeffner said in a statement to Patch Friday night,” adding that simultaneous strikes in Beverly, Gloucester and Marblehead are an indication of what she called a “calculated effort by the state teachers’ union to collude with three North Shore School districts to use our students as pawns.”
“Rather than prepare to negotiate in good faith, they prepared for battle with their matching gear and lawn signs — and walked out on their students — and have been parading out in the streets of Marblehead in front of cameras day after day,” she said.
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Schaeffner’s comments come as the sides negotiate with the help of a state mediator this weekend in hopes of avoiding having the strike stretch into a second week.
The MEA was hit with a $50,000 contempt fine with fines escalating $10,000 each school day that the strike continues. Public sector strikes are illegal in Massachusetts.
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“We are not going to stop because of the fines,” MEA member Hannah Hood said during a news conference on Thursday. “We need to stand up for what is right.”
Schaeffner said the district’s latest proposal is “fair and reflects the realities of the town’s limits.”
MEA President Jonathan Heller has urged the School Committee to seek a property tax override to “fully fund the schools” as well as the new contracts for both school and municipal employees and expressed confidence that working together the teachers and town officials can convince voters to support this tax override push where others have repeatedly failed.
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“Only Marblehead can solve Marblehead’s problems,” he said on Friday.
But Schaeffner on Friday night reiterated that — given the history of failed general override votes, including those in 2022 and 2023 — the MEA proposal that would require a $7.5 million override is too big of a risk for the town to take considering the implications of yet another failure.
“The prospects for an override of that size are slim given the town has rejected four of them in the past 20 years,” she said. “If it fails then we would have no choice but to reduce staff by about 75 positions. Our goal is to keep teachers and staff employed and keep school class sizes smaller than many surrounding districts.
“We pride ourselves on that and our students deserve the best education possible.”
She claimed that “there have been no serious counterproposals from the union.”
“We hope we can agree to terms soon,” she said. “But we plan to stay as long as it takes.”
(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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