HUNTINGTON – As the Gateway Regional School Committee readies negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement with teachers, it was proposed that each of the district’s member towns appoint one of their own to represent them in the proceedings.
Earlier this week, Daniel Jacques, chairman of the Montgomery Select Board, was selected to represent his community during the upcoming talks.
Jacques received yes votes from Pandora Hague, chairwoman of Russell’s Select Board, Aimee Burnham, chairwoman of Huntington’s Select Board, and Andrew Montanaro of the Town of Blandford at the school committee meeting Wednesday.
The towns of Chester and Middlefield did not send representatives to the meeting, while the town of Worthington declined the invitation to send a representative.
“I’d like to thank my fellow Select Board members from these towns for having the faith in me to do this,” said Jacques after the vote.
Gateway Regional School Committee Chair Gretchen Eliason said that Jacques’ selection would lead to him being invited to sit on a negotiation subcommittee, as well as having a seat with the school committee itself.
Attorney Russell Dupere, legal counsel for the district, explained that the selection of Jacques would require that the committee decide to what extent his role would be in negotiations.
“The first piece is automatic under the law. You have the right to be essentially part of the school committee about contracts in executive session, and you would have a vote in that process,” he said. “The second part is optional depending depend on what the committee would like to do. The actual negotiating team, you could have the town member on the negotiating team. It’s up to the committee to make that decision.”
Jacques then read from the regulation itself.
“A municipal representative shall have one vote in all school committee deliberations, on collective bargaining matters,” he said. “The municipal representative shall serve as a member of the school committee on all matters related to collective bargaining by the regional school district, may serve on the school district bargaining team if selected by the school committee to be a member of such sub-committee.”
The selection of Jacques is complicated by the fact that negotiations have already begun. A letter was supposed to have been sent to the individual town selectboards 21 days before the negotiations were to begin.
“The superintendent of the district shall send a notice to all chief executive officers of the member cities and towns,” said committee member Ruth Kennedy. “And seeing as (the letters ) didn’t go out, we’ve got to do it.”
“I apologize to the representatives,” said Eliason. “Ideally, it would’ve happened in the fall, but it’s new to us. We haven’t done it before.”
Superintendent Dr. David Hopson stated that, while Jacques has been selected by his fellow representatives to sit on the school committee, his sitting at the bargaining table may prove to be out of the school committee’s control.
“You have to have the agreement from the other side about who is going to sit at that table,” he said. “I did ask whether they wanted to have another member from their side and another member from our side, and their discussion at that point was that they are not interested in having another member at the table. You would have to have that agreement between the school committee and the teacher’s association.”
Regarding the current status of the talks between the school committee and the Gateway Teacher Association, Hopson said he would bring Jacques up to date on his own.
