The Labor Relations Board fact-finder, brought in by the district's school board and the Tyrone Area Education Association, eliminates any threat of a work stoppage until at least Sept. 6. That date marks the end of the 10-day cooling-off period required by state law after the report's release.
The time frame gives both sides an opportunity to reject or accept the state's suggestions on finding common ground on a new contract, Superintendent William Miller said last week.
"We're not really concerned," Miller said of the possibility that the district and teachers would be unable to forge an agreement. Should either side or both sides reject the report, the cooling-off period would require the board and the association to vote a second time. If the district and its teachers fail to agree on the report’s recommendation after that vote, a walkout could send students home.
The last time teachers walked the picket lines in Tyrone was in Miller's second year as superintendent, 35 years ago. Miller said he didn’t foresee a teachers' strike this time.
"School will be opening," he said.
Whether teachers remain on the job largely depends on how the report addresses the main sticking point of contract negotiations: how quickly teacher salaries rise in accordance with years of service.
Teachers negotiator Steve Everhart said Friday that he was unable to comment on the report, but he said teachers are holding out because when compared with other districts across the county and state, it takes far too long for teachers to reach their maximum career salaries.
While the district's current starting salary is $32,000, it would take a new teacher 41 years to reach the maximum salary, far longer than neighboring districts, Everhart said.
A Bellwood-Antis teacher, he said, would reach that same salary mark in 15 or 16 years.
In dollar terms, a Tyrone teacher, over the course of a career, lags behind a Bellwood-Antis teacher by about $135,000, Everhart said. Countywide, the average difference is $120,000.
"We're losing excessive numbers of young teachers," he said, citing the loss of a half-dozen teachers last year.
Fixing the inequity would have little effect on the taxpayer, but not addressing it will have an affect in the classroom, he said.
Everhart said teachers are going elsewhere, even if it means they initially will make less money.
The reason is that other districts have pay scales that limit the maximum salary a teacher can make, and in those districts, a teacher tends to make more money than teachers at Tyrone over the course of a career.
Although Tyrone has no ceiling for noncost-of-living- related pay increases, it would take more time than most teaching careers last to reach the maximum salaries teachers elsewhere had been earning for decades.
School board negotiators were unavailable for comment, but Everhart described the talks as "friendly and cordial the whole way through" since both sides sat down at the table last October.
Through its Web site, http://taea.psealocals.org, the teachers association hopes to inform parents and taxpayers about the pay discrepancies, said Everhart, an English teacher.
The association would much rather ink a new five-year contract without walking out, he said.
Like other parents in the district, Trudy Aungst heard the strike rumors and was concerned.
"I think it's somewhat scary because I want the best for my daughter," she said.
She also worries a strike could make it harder on her daughter, a fifth-grader going to the middle school for the first time.
"She'll be just getting into a routine, and then she'll be home again," she said.
Besides the routine, there are child care concerns for working families, Aungst said.
"It's going to be a mess," she said.
(altoonamirror.com)