PENNCREST negotiates its way through summer vacation

Aug. 17—With the first day of the 2023-24 school year less than two weeks away, PENNCREST School District teachers and administrators are trying to cross one major item off their "to do" lists.

But the likelihood that the two sides will reach an agreement on a new contract for the union that represents the district's teachers is extremely small, according to the union.

If that prediction holds true, it would make two consecutive summers in which negotiations did not succeed in producing a contract. The two sides have been working on an agreement since January 2022. The union has been working without a contract since the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.

After the PENNCREST School Board work session held at Cambridge Springs Junior-Senior High on Monday, Debbie Miller, president of PENNCREST Area Education Association, was asked by the Tribune if she was optimistic about having a contract by the time classes began on Aug. 30.

"No," she said, with a small group of union members around her in the empty auditorium following the meeting. "There's too many remaining questions."

In an email Wednesday, Superintendent Tim Glasspool said he does not typically comment publicly on labor negotiations and declined to answer questions about the issues holding the process up or whether the continued lack of a contract would impact students.

"We are making progress," Glasspool said.

The lack of a resolution is not for lack of effort. Miller said the two sides have, until recently, been meeting weekly throughout the summer. In July, she, too, reported progress in addressing the board during its monthly voting meeting. Miller gave credit for the progress to a switch from meetings involving the full negotiating teams from both sides to a new "sidebar" format in which Miller and union Vice President Julie Frantz meet with Glasspool and Business Manager Kristen Eckart.

Both sides expressed optimism about finding a compromise after dozens of union members attended a board meeting in a show of force last October. At the time, union officials said top concerns included the district's ability to recruit highly qualified teachers and to retain veteran faculty members

Union leaders on Monday pointed to healthcare benefits as a key remaining challenge for the two sides. She noted that PENNCREST, which participates in the Northwestern Regional Employee Benefit Trust, is self-insured. Rather than paying insurance premiums, the district pays the trust, which pays Highmark directly for the actual claims made by employees.

"The big sticking point right now is healthcare," Frantz said. "With the rising costs, that's the hardest part right now."

"Unfortunately, we've had a lot of suffering people. Since COVID, it's been bad," Miller added. "A lot of years, it's worked out very well for PENNCREST, but when you have a lot of claims or you have a bad couple of years — as we've had lately ... it's been bad this year especially and last year wasn't much better."

A five-year contract between Crawford Central School District and its teachers union last year brought with it annual salary increases of ranging from 2.5 percent to 4 percent for each year of the agreement. PENNCREST's last contract, approved in 2018 after having expired the previous year, included annual raises of 2.2 percent.

A Penn State report released in May estimated that 10,000 teachers in the state had left their jobs since the start of the 2021-22 school year. Since 2010, the number of people receiving teacher certifications annually in Pennsylvania has nose-dived from more than 16,000 in 2021-23 to just 4,220 in 2021-22.

Mike Crowley can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at mcrowley@meadvilletribune.com.