Negotiations continuing between BW school district, two unions

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

It’s no secret that mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (a.k.a. teach­ers) and Big Wal­nut Pro­fes­sional Sup­port Staff Asso­ci­a­tion have been col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing for new con­tracts with the Big Wal­nut Local School District.

While the two asso­ci­a­tions are nego­ti­at­ing with the school dis­trict sep­a­rately, they use the same Ohio Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion Labor Rela­tions Con­sul­tant and, dur­ing recent nego­ti­a­tions, have exhib­ited pub­licly expressed sol­i­dar­ity. Mem­bers of the BWEA and PSSA were vis­i­ble at the Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 7, Big Wal­nut var­sity foot­ball game; and they gath­ered on Sun­bury Vil­lage Square last week while a bar­gain­ing ses­sion was tak­ing place inside Sun­bury Town Hall.

Pre­ced­ing Mon­day evening’s Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing a large group of BWEA and PSSA mem­bers gath­ered out­side Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School and walked in and sat down together imme­di­ately before the meet­ing began.

Dur­ing the pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion sec­tion of the meet­ing, Big Wal­nut Ele­men­tary School Reading/Literacy Facil­i­ta­tor Shan­non Mignogno stood and said the 200-plus mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion were dis­ap­pointed in the recent negotiations.

“We know it’s impor­tant to attain and retain qual­ity staff,” Mignogno said. “The mem­bers of our orga­ni­za­tions go above and beyond. We par­tic­i­pated in the levy cam­paigns, we ini­ti­ated pay freezes, we love our jobs.”

Three dis­trict res­i­dents – Scott Erick, Chris Podraza and Ryan Dun­lap – stood to express con­cerns about the district’s abil­ity to keep its five-year levy promise if raises and ben­e­fit con­ces­sions have a neg­a­tive impact on the district’s budget.

Erick said Big Wal­nut is a source of pride for him and his chil­dren; that wher­ever he goes, peo­ple know about the Big Wal­nut school district.

“It’s impor­tant that we look to the future,” Erick said. “I want to say that we did what we said we would do (kept the five-year levy promise), and con­tinue the Big Wal­nut pride we all share.”

Podraza said her fam­ily has lived in the Big Wal­nut dis­trict for seven years, and her chil­dren have never had a bad teacher.

“Fly­ers handed out at a Fri­day night foot­ball game indi­cated they want a fair con­tract, but we don’t know what’s being nego­ti­ated,” Podraza said. “I don’t want another levy. A lot of peo­ple in this com­mu­nity expect that levy to last.”

Dun­lap, who has three chil­dren attend­ing school in the dis­trict, said he applauded the unity he was see­ing dur­ing con­tract negotiations.

“But I want you to be care­ful you don’t send the wrong mes­sage,” Dun­lap said. “Times are tougher now than they were two years ago. I know you’re scared, but more cuts are com­ing. You have to under­stand the pub­lic doesn’t have a voice, and tax­pay­ers are hurt­ing too. I’m root­ing for you guys, but I don’t want any­body to get RIF’d.”

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing Dun­lap said it’s com­mon knowl­edge that more cuts are com­ing to edu­ca­tion; that Gov­er­nor Kasich’s goal is to build a state bud­get sur­plus and that’s going to impact every­body that depends on state fund­ing. He added that less rev­enue com­ing in from income tax exac­er­bates Kasich’s bud­get problems.

Board pres­i­dent Pam Lil­lie made a sim­ple state­ment and avoided fur­ther comment.

“The board of edu­ca­tion is in nego­ti­a­tions,” Lil­lie said. “The board and admin­is­tra­tion will con­tinue to nego­ti­ate in good faith and keep our levy promise. I’m con­fi­dent we will come to an agreement.”

In her Finan­cial Sum­mary, dis­trict trea­surer Feli­cia Drum­mey said Big Wal­nut received $8.2 mil­lion in August and had $2.3 mil­lion in expenses. Drum­mey said the pos­i­tive cash flow was the result of a $7.7 mil­lion prop­erty tax dis­burse­ment for the first half of the year.

“The dis­trict has a $12.9 mil­lion cash bal­ance.” Drum­mey said. “That’s typ­i­cal of the nat­ural rev­enue cycle in the early years of a levy cycle. That money must be saved for the fourth and fifth years of the levy when expenses will out­pace revenue.”

Drum­mey also reported that a 1.2-mil levy from 2005 has expired, pro­duc­ing an antic­i­pated $259,000 decline in prop­erty tax income, along with an addi­tional unan­tic­i­pated rev­enue decline due to lower real estate valuations.

‘We also has $286,000 more than last August in expenses, mostly in the form of salaries and ben­e­fits,” Drum­mey said. “Salaries for August 2012 were higher due to the restora­tion of pro­grams and the rehir­ing of RIF’d staff.”

Drum­mey said Pur­chase Ser­vices expenses were up $125,000, due to an invoice paid to the Edu­ca­tional Ser­vice Cen­ter of Cen­tral Ohio. In the past, Drum­mey said, that money was deducted directly from the state foun­da­tion dis­burse­ment, but the dis­trict has elected to receive the funds and make its own pay­ments to the ESCCO.

Dis­trict Assis­tant Super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber said the Sep­tem­ber Trans­porta­tion Report is the best he has seen since he came to the district.

“In our 109 square miles we bus 2,500 kids every day,” Bar­ber said. “In the first 13 days we’ve cov­ered 31,362 miles, and with a new build­ing and the new three-tier bus­ing sys­tem our dri­vers have spent the least amount of down­time they’ve ever had.”

Bar­ber said there have been some issues due to road clo­sures, but most buses are on time.

“We thank par­ents, teach­ers and staff for their patience in help­ing us to make sure that stu­dents are safely on their buses,” Bar­ber said.

Bar­ber also said the admin­is­tra­tion is exam­in­ing the district’s bul­ly­ing pol­icy, espe­cially cyber bul­ly­ing, because of poten­tial con­se­quences for school districts.

“There will be staff train­ing, and we’re going to part­ner with our stu­dents to help deliver the mes­sage,” Bar­ber said. “We’re going to make this as pos­i­tive as we can because we have a great school cul­ture at Big Wal­nut, and we want to make sure it stays that way.”

Dis­trict super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi said a new Ath­letic Sur­vey will be avail­able in the mid­dle school and high school offices, and online.

“We want to make cer­tain, like any busi­ness, that we’re lis­ten­ing to our cus­tomers,” Mazzi said. ”Par­ents will fill out the sur­vey and at the end of the year the ath­letic direc­tors and coaches will dis­cuss how we did as a dis­trict and with indi­vid­ual ath­letic programs.”

Board mem­ber Verna Hines intro­duced 2012–13 Big Wal­nut High School Stu­dent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Board of Edu­ca­tion, Nicole Meyer.

“Nicole will be a spokesper­son for 3,000 stu­dents, an impor­tant job,” Hines said. “Other stu­dents will be able to express them­selves through her.”

Meyer is a senior plan­ning on attend­ing High Point Uni­ver­sity in North Car­olina to study pho­tog­ra­phy. She has served on Stu­dent Coun­cil for three years, is active in the Drama Club, and served as a mem­ber of this year’s Eagles First Flight.

In other busi­ness, board mem­bers held a first read­ing of NEOLA Additions/Revisions.

• Board mem­bers approved the Mem­ber Ser­vice Agree­ment between Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict and Tri-Rivers Edu­ca­tional Com­puter Asso­ci­a­tion (TRECA).

• Board mem­bers adopted the Ohio Prin­ci­pal Eval­u­a­tion Sys­tem (OPES).

• Board mem­bers approved Verna Hines as the Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the board.

• Board mem­bers approved a 90-day pro­ba­tion­ary con­tract for the fol­low­ing clas­si­fied employ­ees for the 2012–13 school year: Chris Holly, Spe­cial Needs Assis­tant, Big Wal­nut High School, step 3; Angela Sny­der, Cler­i­cal Assis­tant (.25), Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary, step 3; Mike Hamil­ton, Spe­cial Needs Assis­tant (bus aide), step 3; Sheri Woerner, 2 hour Food Ser­vice Worker, Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School, step 0.

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing ath­letic sup­ple­men­tal con­tracts for the 2012–13 school year:

Foot­ball: Anthony Zarcone, Volunteer

Facil­ity Man­ager: Chris Holly, 2/3 High School

Vol­ley­ball: Matt Schoonover, Assistant

Cross Coun­try: Melissa Pecci, Mid­dle School, Volunteer

Cheer­lead­ing: Nikki Pen­ning­ton, Mid­dle School, Volunteer

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing Extended Ser­vice con­tracts for the 2012–13 school year:

EXTENDED DAYS: Tammi Jor­dan, Guid­ance Coun­selor, Big Wal­nut High School 15 days; Molly For­tune, Guid­ance Coun­selor, Big Wal­nut High School 15 days; Nancy McCracken-Bennett, Guid­ance Coun­selor, Big Wal­nut High School 15 days.

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing cer­ti­fied staff as Home Instruc­tion Tutor, at an hourly rate of $18 for the 2012–13 school year: Josh Dalton.

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing dona­tions: School sup­plies donated to Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary, dona­tion made by Dol­lar General.

The next reg­u­larly sched­uled Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing will be held at 7 p.m., Mon­day, Octo­ber 8, in the Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School Library.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.