Contract dispute leads to teachers' picket line at Braintree School Committee meeting
BRAINTREE − More than 100 teachers seeking a new contract and their supporters demonstrated in the snow outside a school committee meeting this week. The teachers have been working without a contract since the start of the school year.
As the meeting began Monday, the group marched through the Colbert School Administration Building, chanting "fair contract" and "now." They also stood by the windows of the meeting room holding signs with messages such as "More than praise, we need a raise" and "I'm taking a night off from my second job to do this."
"We're looking for a fair contract," said Truong Dinh, a physics teacher at Braintree High School and president of the Braintree Education Association, the union representing teachers and other school personnel. "There are significant differences between what we feel we deserve and what they want to give us."
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In addition to a pay raise for teachers, the union is seeking raises for educational support professionals and changes in working conditions, such as guaranteed daily preparation time for elementary school teachers.
With teachers' unions around the state taking strike votes and in some cases walking off the job, Dinh would not elaborate on what the Braintree union plans to do next.
"We'll be taking more actions as we go forward," he said.
Asked for comment after the school committee meeting, Chairwoman Lisa Fiske Heger said she values the teachers' work.
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"I too want to come to a contract agreement," she said.
The student members of the school committee, who are not involved in the negotiations, read a statement in support of the teachers during the meeting.
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Reach Fred Hanson at fhanson@patriotledger.com.
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: 'We need a raise': Braintree teachers picket school committee meeting
