Career Technology Center negotiations resume today
Published: October 31, 2009
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Linda Morgan / Staff Photographer Kristen Smith, a Career Technology Center math teacher, pickets near the facility Friday.
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Negotiations between striking teachers and the administrators from the Career Technology Center of Lackawanna County will resume today.
Superintendents and school directors from sending schools met behind closed doors for 90 minutes Friday afternoon as the officials were briefed on the offers made. After the meeting, today's session was scheduled.
"It was productive, the goal being to get the kids back in school," Scranton Superintendent William King said as he left the North Scranton center. About 300 of the center's 700 students are from Scranton schools.
The superintendents said they were encouraged after the meeting and are hoping the alternate schedules given to their students will not last through next week.
Instead of spending a half-day at the Career Technology Center, students enrolled in the CTC's 23 vocational and technical programs are spending a full day at their home schools. Adult classes taught by unionized teachers, such as the licensed practical nursing program, also have been canceled.
District officials are concerned that students in the cosmetology and nurse aide programs may not be able to receive the required amount of classroom hours for program certification because students will not be making up the days teachers are on strike.
In Carbondale, 37 CTC students have been enrolled in alternate classes and will remain in them until the strike is over, Superintendent Dominick Famularo, Ed.D., said as he left the meeting.
Outside the entrance to the school Friday - the third day of the strike - teachers picketed as the superintendents and school directors arrived.
"It's up to them," union President Yolanda Martinelli said. "The ball's in their court."
Pay is the main issue that still needs to be settled in the contract; teachers note they make less than the teachers from districts that send students to the center.
Offers on the table include, from the center, a 3.5 percent raise each year of a five-year contract, and from the union, an 8 percent increase each year of the contract. Both offers include health insurance paid in full for the length of the contract.
Valley View Superintendent Joseph Daley, who is also superintendent of record for CTC, said he is optimistic students will return to the center next week.
"We have a good staff here," Mr. Daley said. "We want the students back in school."
Contact the writer: shofius@timesshamrock.com
34 posted comments
Please examine Scranton's salary scale including steps and you will see that the deal is not better. Opinions are fine but should be based on fact not assumption.