More details emerged Friday about the final best contract offer the Souderton Area School Board approved and made public to the district's teachers Thursday night.

The school district's three-year offer contains about the same increases in teacher pay of about 2.5 percent a year that has been offered all along; reworked health-care coverage; and additional steps on the teacher salary schedule.

School board President Bernie Currie pointed out that the offer seeks to increase the starting salary, smooth out the "bump step" and raise the "max max" step.

The bump step refers to a large jump in the salaries as teachers advance from their 14th to their 15th years of service.

Souderton Area Education Association President Bill Lukridge said Friday that at least one part of the school board's offer may not be welcomed by teachers: the addition of extra steps on the salary schedule to smooth out the bump step.

"We're not going to add steps to our

calendar, that's just not going to fly with us," said Lukridge.

The teacher salary schedule for 2007-08 features pay hikes of roughly $17,000 for teachers advancing from years 14 to 15. For example, a teacher with a master's degree earns $66,171 in year 14 and $83,451 in year 15.

"Imagine if you're on step 14, which is the next to last step, but during the course of the contract you'll never get to the top step because they're always putting a step in front of you," he said.

"We've already let the board know that adding steps to the salary guide just isn't in the best interests of our membership," said Lukridge.

The school board's offer adds a step 15a between 14 and 15 in 2008-09, an additional step 15b in 2009-10, and an additional step 15c in 2010-11 to the salary schedule, but Lukridge said Friday that more steps are not necessarily the answer.

"We're trying to eliminate big steps too, but there are other solutions to fix that problem, and we're trying to look at other ways to solve those problems," he said.

When asked for comment on the district's final best offer Friday, Gary Smith, the negotiator for the teachers union, said he was out of the office but would meet on Sunday to examine the district's proposal.

"We hope to get some confirmations on Monday, but I don't work on Mr. Sultanik's timetable," Smith said.

Also, an updated district calendar was released showing fixes the board approved Thursday. A press release from the school district described details of the arbitration process; the school board's offer itself was posted online; and a new e-mail address, Arbitration-Comments@soudertonsd.org, has been established to send in comments on both sides' final offers.

First, the calendar:

"Due to the 13 days of missed instruction as a result of the recent work stoppage, and in order to meet the requirement of 180 days of instruction by June 15, we're required to change some former holidays to instructional days," said Superintendent Charles Amuso.

Former holidays that Souderton Area students will now spend in school include Rosh Hashanah on Sept. 30, Yom Kippur on Oct. 9, Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 19 and Presidents Day on Feb. 16, according to the revised district schedule.

"Also, the scheduled Act 80 days are not permitted to the school district this year because there was a work stoppage," said Amuso. "Even if it was only a one-day stoppage, all of the days would have to be eliminated."

Former Act 80 dates which will now see full days of school are Sept. 25, Jan. 14 and March 11. Parents won't be able to schedule teacher conferences on Nov. 24, 25 or 26, because those are all now full days, and spring break will be shorter too, with school in session on April 9 and 13.

"And June 15 is the 13th day we'd have to make up, so that means it will have to be a full day for kindergarten as well as the rest of the district's students," Amuso said.

The district also named the three members of the panel that will arbitrate the dispute between the board and the teachers.

SAEA chose Donald Atkiss as its interest arbitrator, the school district chose Mark Fitzgerald as its interest arbitrator, and both have agreed to name Rochelle Kaplan to be the neutral arbitrator on the three-person panel.

"As part of the process required under Act 88 of 1992, the public comment period on the best offers will be initiated next week, when we hope to have received the Souderton Area Education Association's final best offer," said school district negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik.

To see the full details on the proposal, go to www.thereporteronline.com.

The district office will have hard copies of both sides' offers on hand as soon as the public comment period begins, and both will be posted online at www.SoudertonSD.org.

Comments on the offers may be submitted via e-mail to Arbitration-Comments@soudertonsd.org, or submitted to the district offices at 760 Lower Road in Franconia Township. All comments must state the name and address of a resident of the Souderton Area School District.

By: Dan Sokil

The Souderton Area School Board, in a final item listed as an addendum to the board agenda Thursday night, approved the salaries of the principals throughout the school district.

When called for information on the approval today, district officials said they would release the information "within five business days, as allowed under the state Right to Know Law."

When a Reporter staff writer went to the district office and requested to look at the document detailing the salaries approved, he was denied any information, again saying that it would be provided within five business days.

Another call was placed to Charles Amuso, district superintendent, by The Reporter, and he again was asked why the district would not provide the information to the staff writer who was at the office.

He again stated that the district has the right to take the five days to respond.

When asked if he was at the school board meeting he replied that he was. When asked if he knew what salaries had been approved he again said that he did, but that he did not "have the information at my fingertips" and that it would be provided within the five days.

When asked why he did not want to release it and did he not think the taxpayers might be irritated to not have the information, the "five days" window again was noted. Amuso then said that it was not the administrators' salaries that had been approved, if that is what the paper thought.

When asked whose salaries had been approved, he replied, "All of the principals."

When asked when the administrators' salaries would be approved by the school board, he replied, "We don't know that."

When the information is released by the school district on the principals' salaries, it will be printed by The Reporter.

Changes:
- September 25, 2008 - Act 80 Day - Eliminated and now a full instructional day. (Note - this one is already in place)
- September 30, 2008 - Rosh Hashanah Holiday - Now a full instructional day
- October 9, 2008 - Yom Kippur Holiday - Now a full instructional day
- October 14, 2008 - In-Service Day - Eliminated and now a full instructional day
- November 4, 2008 - General Election Day Holiday - Now a full instructional day
- November 24, 25, 26, 2008 - Parent/Teacher Conferences - Eliminated and now full instructional days
- January 14, 2009 - Act 80 Day - Eliminated and now a full instructional day
January 19, 2009 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Holiday - Now a full instructional day
- February 16, 2009 - President's Day Holiday - Now a full instructional day
- March 11, 2009 - Act 80 Day - Eliminated and now a full instructional day
- April 9 & 13, 2009 - Easter Holiday/Spring Break - Now full instructional days
- May 19, 2009 - Primary Election Day Holiday - Now a full instructional day
- June 12, 2009 - Last Day for Kindergarten Students - Length of day to be determined
- June 15, 2009 - Last Day for Students - Length of day to be determined
- June 16, 2009 - Snow Make Up Day #1
- June 17, 2009 - Snow Make Up Day #2
- June 18, 2009 - Snow Make Up Day #3
- June 19, 2009 - Snow Make Up Day #4

The district previously said the following days will NOT be used as make-up days:

- Saturdays and Sundays
- Nov. 27 (Thanksgiving) and Nov. 28
- Dec. 24, Dec. 25 (Christmas) and Dec. 26
- Jan. 1 (New Year?s Day) and Jan. 2
- Memorial Day
- April 10
- July 4

By: Dan Sokil

It's official, and it's about to go public.

The Souderton Area School Board voted unanimously Thursday night to make their final best offer to the district's teachers union, and the district's offer should be made public later today.

"We'd like the public to understand some of the background and rationale for the board's final best offer, especially with regard to some of the major sticking points," said school board president Bernie Currie.

The school district's three year offer contains some increases in teacher pay, reworked health care coverage, and additional steps on the teacher salary schedule.

"This board set out to reach some sort of equity, but we still have a long way to go. We're taking small steps," Currie said.

In a PowerPoint presentation using information from the 2007-08 salary table the district and the Souderton Area Education Association agreed to in 2004, Currie pointed out some of the problems with the current salary schedule the district's offer attempts to resolve.

"Our final best offer objectives include increasing the starting salary, and we'll also make an attempt to smooth out the 'bump step' and raise what we call the 'max max' step," Currie said.

The 'bump step' refers to a large jump in the salaries of Souderton's teachers as they advance from their 14th to their 15th years of service.

Under the current salary schedule, Currie said, teachers with a master's degree and additional educational credits earn raises of between $17,000 and $18,000 from step 14 to step 15, depending on their levels of educational credits earned.

The school board's proposal would add one step between 14 and 15 in 2008-09, a second step between 14 and 15 in 2009-10 and a third step in 2010-11 that would attempt to smooth out the jump between steps 14 and 15.

The "max, max," or highest salary attainable by a teacher in the district, would increase from $89,363 in 2007-08 to $90,703 in 2008-09, then to $92,064 in 2009-10 and to $93,445 in 2010-11.

The average wage in the school district in 2007-08 was approximately $41,222 and the average salary of a teacher in the district was $65,772, Currie said.

"Our offer also sets aside money for performance pay. Under our proposal, four members of the administration and four of the teachers union would meet to design and develop a performance pay program," Currie said.

The board's proposal would require three years of approximately 1.4 percent tax increases to fund the increase in teacher salaries, but the union's latest proposal would require tax increases of between 3 and 6 percent each year, Currie said.

School district solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik said the full offer will be posted publicly today on the district's Web site, and will be e-mailed in a press release to district parents.

"Once the offers are officially logged in, there will be a 10 day public comment period, and those comments will be formally collated and submitted to the board of arbitration," Sultanik said.

Both sides have agreed to arbitration on only those issues that have not already been addressed, and the arbitration panel will be able to choose from either the district's offer, the union's offer, or craft their own solution in the process.

"The arbitration process was initiated as of Sept. 19, which was the date the teachers returned to work under our accelerated arbitration proposal," Sultanik said.

"Ten days from then would be the 29th, which is this Monday, and it's my opinion that the teachers have to post their final best offer by then," he said.

By: Dan Sokil

It's official: School starts today for students in the Souderton Area School District.

"The teachers voted unanimously to go back tomorrow," spokesman Rob Broderick said on Thursday on behalf of the teachers union.

"They basically accepted the school board's offer to go to non-binding arbitration, and they're looking forward to that process beginning next week," he said.

The news came after a day of quick developments in the dispute between the Souderton Area School Board and the Souderton Area Education Association, as both parties agreed to end the teachers strike and advance to the next step in the negotiation process.

"The arbitration starts next week. We'll discuss who's going to be on the arbitration panel; each side puts together its proposal, and there'll be discussion on each side of what kind of arbitration we'll be using," said Broderick, who is with the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

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Once the teachers took their vote shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Broderick said, SAEA head Bill Lukridge officially informed the school district of the decision, and a statement from Superintendent Charles Amuso was sent out

shortly thereafter.

"A wonderful year is about to begin in the Souderton Area School District tomorrow ... and on behalf of the District, I am delighted," the statement said.

The statement was accompanied by a press release describing the arbitration process, and detailing Friday's opening.

Kindergarten orientation will take place as previously planned, and sophomores who attend the North Montco Technical Career will report there via buses that leave the Souderton Area High School at 7:40 a.m. according to their regular schedule, said the press release.

"I look forward to knowing that each and every one of our students will be in school tomorrow, benefiting from the top-notch education that our district provides," Amuso said.

Broderick estimated there were nearly 500 teachers present at Thursday afternoon's SAEA membership meeting, all of whom voted to go back to their classrooms instead of continuing the strike.

"There were a lot of people in there, some of them with young children, and they're anxious to get back and to get with their students tomorrow," Broderick said Thursday night. "They will be participating in Back to School nights whenever those are going to be held at the various schools, and they will be in the classroom tomorrow."

Jeffrey Sultanik, chief negotiator for the school board, said he and representatives of the striking teachers union had been talking all week about expediting the final-best-offer arbitration process that both sides would have been required to start next week.

"We are glad that the teachers did what was best for the students of the district. Now, children can return to school and we can continue the hard work of reaching an agreement that is fair to both teachers and the community," Sultanik said.

Once both parties begin the arbitration process, they have 10 days to submit their final best offers on all unresolved issues to a three person arbitration panel, said the district's statement.

The panel would review the offers, post them for 10 days to allow public comment, hold hearings and issue its own written determination which either party could then accept or reject.

"We expect that the process will take roughly a month, in terms of choosing the panel, getting together the data and everything, but it has to be a fairly quick vote on the panel's recommendations so it will not go until the spring," said Broderick.

"The teachers are looking forward to that process beginning next week, and hopefully getting enough movement on both sides that there'll be a contract before Christmas," he said.

If either party rejects those recommendations, a short "second strike" could then begin, but Thursday's big news was that the first day of school is today.

"It is time for the community to turn its focus away from the past weeks and to look ahead to the dynamic learning opportunities that await our students," said Amuso.

BY: Dan Sokil

The last time he was involved in a teachers strike in the Souderton Area School District, Bill Lukridge remembers getting the word out was a little harder.

"It's really a different world today than the way it was back in 1986. Whether that's good or bad, who's to judge, but the pace of communication is just so much faster today," said Lukridge, head of the teachers union, the Souderton Area Education Association.

Today, in a world where everybody has a cellphone and can post or comment on a Web site, getting the word out about each side's position requires using all of the tools at one's disposal, especially the Internet.

"We started our Web site just as the strike began. In the beginning, we were working with a very skeleton force on it, but now we have a core of teachers willing to put their time into working on it while other teachers are out on strike," Lukridge said.

The union's Web site, www.SAEA.info, has had more than 90,000 hits since the strike began, and now features a "Q&A" section and a plethora of news updates regarding the current contract dispute.

Teachers went back to school today, but without a contract.

Following a vote by the teachers union on Thursday, both

sides have agreed to enter an arbitration process, but they're both still trying to get their side of the story out to the public.

"Of course, we're finding it hard to compete with the school district's Web site," Lukridge said. "People automatically know to turn to the school district's Web site because they've done that before to find out about the weather, school closings, and things like that."

The district's Web site, www.SoudertonSD.org, also features a section of news updates, the district's strike contingency plans, and a FAQ section to address parents concerns, all linked from the SASD homepage.

"We want to make it as easy and as quick as possible for users to get that information," said Brigitte Bagocius, the district's full-time Web development specialist.

"We realize how important it is to have all of that information available to the community; essentially we're just making it a shortcut for them, by going to the homepage to get to this information," she said.

In addition to the news posted on the main page, the "Contract Negotiations" header links the reader to a section with more information available, as far back as the district's first contract negotiation update on June 5. The Web site itself has been in operation since 1998.

"We often get positive comments on the ease of use of our site, and that people find the information that they wanted, so I don't know if we're just beating people to the punch and putting things up before they can ask for them," said Bagocius.

School board information can be found beneath the page's "District" tab, and under "Community" you can put yourself on up to 15 mailing lists for e-mail updates from the district, a capability Lukridge says is a big advantage in getting the word out.

"As far as the Web site goes, ours matches up with theirs as far as communicating info, but we can't get things to parents the way they can with their TV channel and e-mail list," Lukridge said.

"They can send an e-mail every single day to every single home of every single student, and we do not have that capability," he said.

Bagocius estimated each of the district's e-mails go out to between 4,000 and 6,000 people, and nearly all of the negotiation updates have been sent out in e-mail form.

"I don't decide the content that is posted; the Cabinet decides what goes up," she said. "I definitely think it's helped make people more informed though."

"At last Thursday's (Sept. 11) school board meeting, there were several community members there who specifically made mention of information they'd obtained from the Web site, so I think we're doing our job there," Bagocius said.

Meanwhile, the SAEA has a settlement task force that decides what to post and when, and the blistering pace they set amazes even Lukridge.

"It's just amazing to me that we can have a bargaining session, it'll end, and in a hour it's already out there on Web pages," Lukridge said.

"We can talk about things that happened at a board meeting and the very next day, it's on a Web page, almost word for word. It's just truly amazing the amount of mass media out there, and the speed at which it takes place," he said.

By: Dan Sokil

It's official: School starts today for students in the Souderton Area School District.

"The teachers voted unanimously to go back tomorrow," spokesman Rob Broderick said on Thursday on behalf of the teachers union.

"They basically accepted the school board's offer to go to non-binding arbitration, and they're looking forward to that process beginning next week," he said.

The news came after a day of quick developments in the dispute between the Souderton Area School Board and the Souderton Area Education Association, as both parties agreed to end the teachers strike and advance to the next step in the negotiation process.

"The arbitration starts next week. We'll discuss who's going to be on the arbitration panel; each side puts together its proposal, and there'll be discussion on each side of what kind of arbitration we'll be using," said Broderick, who is with the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

Once the teachers took their vote shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Broderick said, SAEA head Bill Lukridge officially informed the school district of the decision, and a statement from Superintendent Charles Amuso was sent out

shortly thereafter.

"A wonderful year is about to begin in the Souderton Area School District tomorrow ... and on behalf of the District, I am delighted," the statement said.

The statement was accompanied by a press release describing the arbitration process, and detailing Friday's opening.

Kindergarten orientation will take place as previously planned, and sophomores who attend the North Montco Technical Career will report there via buses that leave the Souderton Area High School at 7:40 a.m. according to their regular schedule, said the press release.

"I look forward to knowing that each and every one of our students will be in school tomorrow, benefiting from the top-notch education that our district provides," Amuso said.

Broderick estimated there were nearly 500 teachers present at Thursday afternoon's SAEA membership meeting, all of whom voted to go back to their classrooms instead of continuing the strike.

"There were a lot of people in there, some of them with young children, and they're anxious to get back and to get with their students tomorrow," Broderick said Thursday night. "They will be participating in Back to School nights whenever those are going to be held at the various schools, and they will be in the classroom tomorrow."

Jeffrey Sultanik, chief negotiator for the school board, said he and representatives of the striking teachers union had been talking all week about expediting the final-best-offer arbitration process that both sides would have been required to start next week.

"We are glad that the teachers did what was best for the students of the district. Now, children can return to school and we can continue the hard work of reaching an agreement that is fair to both teachers and the community," Sultanik said.

Once both parties begin the arbitration process, they have 10 days to submit their final best offers on all unresolved issues to a three person arbitration panel, said the district's statement.

The panel would review the offers, post them for 10 days to allow public comment, hold hearings and issue its own written determination which either party could then accept or reject.

"We expect that the process will take roughly a month, in terms of choosing the panel, getting together the data and everything, but it has to be a fairly quick vote on the panel's recommendations so it will not go until the spring," said Broderick.

"The teachers are looking forward to that process beginning next week, and hopefully getting enough movement on both sides that there'll be a contract before Christmas," he said.

If either party rejects those recommendations, a short "second strike" could then begin, but Thursday's big news was that the first day of school is today.

"It is time for the community to turn its focus away from the past weeks and to look ahead to the dynamic learning opportunities that await our students," said Amuso.

By: Dan Sokil

Although teachers in the Souderton Area School District are on strike, many school buses are still on the road.

"We're running about half of the buses that we would normally run. Pretty much the only thing that isn't running is the buses for the 10 public schools," said Steven Pollack, the district office's supervisor of planning and operations.

"What's active right now is we're running the buses for all of the non-public school transportation, as well as for all of the special ed transportation for students that are assigned to programs outside of our public schools," Pollack said.

Some buses deliver district students to just public schools, some to just non-public, and some do both, depending on calculations of route efficiency, and those routes are what determines who is currently working.

"In fact, we have 22 buses that are in that situation: they do combined runs, but are only doing part of their run right now. They're doing the non-public part now but are not able to do the other part of it because those schools are affected by the strike," Pollack said.

The district contracts with Transportation Services Inc., a branch of Franconia-based Hagey Coach & Tours for their school bus needs, and all of those drivers will do 180 days of driving, just not all at the same time.

"We run an integrated schedule, where we do the most efficient runs from a time distribution

standpoint, and mix them together where we can for efficiency purposes. Unfortunately in this circumstance, it ends up being less efficient because the buses for non-public routes are running now and not the public ones," Pollack said.

"Close to half of the drivers are basically not working at this point, because they don't have a run to do, but they'll make up their days just like the instructors have to make them up. Ultimately they'll get their 180 days in, they'll just go longer into June," he said.

Representatives of Hagey, whose headquarters is located on Lower Road in Franconia, declined to comment for this story.

"There will be some additional cost; the effect in terms of the whole year is that those buses would have to run on more days. It's 180 for each, but normally they overlap," said Pollack.

"Say the strike ended today, and it was 10 days long. That would be 10 more days that the public buses would run when the non-public ones wouldn't, so there'll be some additional cost for driver time, and some additional fuel costs as well because it'll end up working out less efficiently," he said.

The combined additional fuel and driver costs he estimated at about $2,000 a day, out of the more than $6.7 million budgeted for the district's transportation needs for 2008-09.

"We did get some questions at the very beginning of the year, mainly from parents of non-public students who wanted to know if they were affected, and the basic answer is no, they won't be," said Pollack.

But much like the district's public school teaching aides, and anyone else who works the same schedule as the district's students, some drivers can only wait for the strike to end.

"The same thing in general would be true of people like our food service workers too, who again will ultimately make up those days, but at least for now they're out of work," Pollack said.

By: Dan Sokil

Despite rumors to the contrary, the striking teachers of the Souderton Area Education Association should be back in their classrooms, one way or another, by this time next week.

"Legally, they need to be back in the classroom after Sept. 23, to follow the provisions in the School Code," said Leah Harris, assistant press secretary for the state Department of Education.

Sept. 23 is the first of two "Critical Dates" set by the Department of Education under Act 88 of 1992. Under Act 88, teachers must return after that date in order to teach 180 days in the classroom by June 15.

"The first date is in the school code, which states that 'Provided a strike or a lockout is preventing the school district from providing 180 days of instruction by a date later than June 15 or the last day of the district's scheduled school year, the parties shall submit to mandated final best offer arbitration," said Harris.

"If they're not back in the classroom by Sept. 23, they are supposed to enter into non-binding legal arbitration. If they don't go back, we don't have any type of set action, it would have to be addressed on a case by case basis," she said.

The second "Critical Date," Oct. 8, would be a similar deadline: it's the date by which the teachers would have to return in order to provide 180 classroom days by June 30.

"At the point that they're approaching that date, the Secretary can initiate an injunctive proceeding to essentially make the school district start school, and those teachers go back into the classroom," Harris said.

When asked on Tuesday about the upcoming deadline, SAEA head Bill Lukridge was very clear.

"We must return back on the 24th. There's no question about it, we have to return back by the 24th. There's been no talk so far about returning before then, but that's the best I can answer that," Lukridge said.

The arbitration process would continue while the teachers are back in the classroom, and the fact finding process can take some time, but the teachers union has received no specific timeline for that process from the state, Lukridge said.

"We only know that three arbitrators have to be chosen, they will conduct their findings, and after that's completed they will post them. After they post, there's still 10 days of public recognition of those findings, and then from there they either get accepted or rejected," he said.

Depending on how long the entire arbitration process takes, a second strike could still occur, but would have to end before the second critical date of Oct. 8.

"Though it is true that the Secretary of Education won't file an injunction until Oct. 8, teachers in SASD are prohibited from striking as of Sept. 24," school district negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik said on Tuesday.

"Sources from the teachers union have told me that they plan to return to work on Sept. 24, and they will start the nonbinding arbitration process then, albeit begrudgingly," Sultanik said.

"I understand the concern, and frankly, we don't hold the magic wand here for when the teachers will return back to work," he said.

Negotiations between Sultanik and SAEA negotiator Gary Smith continued by phone on Tuesday, and while no new face to face negotiation sessions have been scheduled before Friday, all sides seem to agree on what will happen next week.

"Teachers and students will return no later than Sept. 24," Superintendent Charles Amuso said in an e-mail message on Tuesday.

"The state has said that we have to go back on the 24th. We have to go back, we absolutely have to go back on the 24th," Lukridge said.

By: Dan Sokil

The Souderton Area Education Association and the school district met again on Monday, but talks broke off after about an hour with little progress.

"There was no movement today. We met together, and went over some minor contract language, but there was no movement today," said SAEA President Bill Lukridge.

Monday's meeting began at 2:30 p.m. and broke off after a little more than an hour, considerably shorter than the marathon five and a half hour session both parties held on Friday.

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"Despite our hopes that today's bargaining session would be highlighted by a much awaited salary proposal by the SAEA, no such proposal was presented by the union," said Jeffrey Sultanik, the district's chief negotiator.

"During the one hour session, the Souderton school board did make concessions on its proposal for in-service days and parent conference days, and the teachers union did not respond to that proposal," he said.

Lukridge stated after talks broke off that "the hangup is still between salary and medical" benefits, but Sultanik painted a different picture of Monday's talks.

"The teachers union continues to insist that the school board agree to a health insurance plan which will cost the district $1.9 million more per year than the school board's plan, before the union is willing to discuss changes to its salary proposal," Sultanik said.

The SAEA has been on strike and picketing outside district schools since Sept 2, which would have been the first day of school for the Souderton Area School District.

"Despite what the union has been communicating to the public, the union leadership has not made a single counterproposal to the salary plan the board submitted on Sept. 1," Sultanik said.

Monday marked the third face to face meeting between the two parties since the strike began.

"Half of the month has passed since then, and we've had the equivalent of a 10 or 11 day work stoppage, while the union steadfastly refuses to change its salary proposal without imposing preconditions," Sultanik said.

State mediator Jill Leeds Rivera last week scheduled another negotiation session for Friday morning at 10:30 a.m., which both parties confirmed Monday is still on as scheduled.

By Dan Sokil

UPPER GWYNEDD — Local U.S. House candidate Frank Custer's campaign office has a different feel these days, but not because Election Day is getting imminent.

No, the difference is actually due to the current teachers strike in the Souderton Area School District, as several students have decided to help out his campaign to keep busy.

"We've been here pretty much all day; we started putting yard signs together on Monday and we have a pile of about a million of them," said Maura Fisher.

Maura, who would be going to Indian Valley Middle School, has also been helping out her friend, Indian Crest eighth-grader Klara Abraham, in all sorts of ways.

The pair has decorated Custer's office with various campaign posters, made phone calls to area voters, and plugged the data from those calls into the campaign office's computer system.

"We have to call these whole big lists of people, and put into the computer what they say," said Klara. "It's fun, but sometimes you call older people and they can't hear you."

Both agreed that the teachers and school board need to take a step back and pay more attention to students like themselves, as did Maura's older sister Karen.

"I think that the teachers should get what they need, and that all of the students are being really disrespectful toward them," Karen said.

"If kids really believe in something, then they should be out here doing things like that, and not fighting against people who are fighting for what they think they deserve," she said.

Her friend (and Klara's older sister) Katie Abraham, while stenciling "Register to vote," had a different take.

"I think it's pretty unfair for the teachers to have a strike at the beginning of the year, but I understand where they're coming from in wanting to get more health benefits and higher salaries," Katie said.

And Maura had a different problem with the teachers going on strike so early in the year.

"I'm kind of annoyed at them, because we're not going to have any vacations now. And they're going to have to work those days too, so they're kind of punishing themselves with the strike," she said.

Regardless of what they think about the strike, Drew Albert, the office's field director, is glad the girls have decided to spend their newfound free time helping out in Custer's office.

"They've done everything from stuff envelopes, to data entry, to making phone calls, to creating posters," said Albert. "They're a huge, huge help, and they're really trying to help us get organized and to help get Frank elected."

By: Dan Sokil, David Hare

Negotiations between the striking teachers union and the Souderton Area School Board broke down Friday.
After this latest negotiation session, which started at 10:30 a.m., and ended around 4 p.m., officials from both parties said the major sticking points remain salary and health care benefits.
"Neither side is willing to make a move on salary unless they move on medical first," said Bill Lukridge, President of the Souderton Area Education Association.
On health care, the district and the union continue to disagree on an amount paid for premiums and deductibles, Lukridge said.
"And there's still no salary proposal that would get us up to the average in Montgomery County," he said.
Jeffrey Sultanik, chief negotiator for the district, said the administration is most concerned by a statement made by union negotiator Gary Smith.
"(Smith) claims he is simply following the direction of the union membership that want enhancements to health with no changes in premium contributions," Sultanik said. "He seems powerless to change that direction. We find that very problematic."
Two new negotiation sessions have been scheduled for September 15 and September 19.
While salary and benefits remain contentious, Sultanik said he was hopeful continued progress could be made on smaller issues.
After Friday's meeting both sides claimed progress was made in smaller areas.
The board agreed to modify its proposals regarding length of the work year, unused personal days and timelines for grievance filing. The teacher's union withdrew its request for classroom coverage compensation and a sick day bank.
Still, Sultanik sounded less sanguine about solving the big issues to end the strike.
"Hopefully the union membership becomes aware that their demands are not achievable at the bargaining table," he said. "The union is conditioning students' education based on the board capitulating to their demands. That's just no going to happen."
Lukridge said the teachers won't return to their jobs during the negotiations because they refuse to work under the old contract that expired in June.
"The only way we're going back to work is if we get a better contract than the one that expired or we're ordered by the court," he said.
Bernard Currie, school board president, released a statement shortly after Friday's meeting
"The union's negotiator (Smith) made it clear that he plans to exhaust the process," Currie said. "We can only assume this means he has no intention of recommending teachers go back to school until required to by state law on September 24. This is most unfortunate for the students and the teachers."
At a press conference Lukridge held just prior to the meeting Friday, he reiterated the union's position that Souderton is losing quality teachers to higher-paying districts.
"How can we stop this erosion of the district's talent pool? And what will happen if we don't?" Lukridge said. "We had a teacher in this district who left to go to Quakertown, was put on a lower step of their salary guide, and still is making $20,000 more per year."
A guidance counselor left Souderton for a job in another district and received a $10,000 raise, Lukridge said, another teacher took a job in Boyertown and landed a $13,000 boost, and a third just went to teach in Philadelphia and saw their salary jump from $45,000 in Souderton to $69,000 in Philadelphia.
"These are real facts, from real people, and if we were to accept the board's present proposal, that erosion of talent will continue," he said.

By: Dan Sokil

The second week of the Souderton Area Education Association's strike has brought some changes to where the district's teachers are walking the picket lines, and Tuesday's showers brought a bit of an interruption, too.

"Today, because of the hazardous weather condition, we had to cancel our picketing; it wasn't able to take place because of the weather," said SAEA president Bill Lukridge on Tuesday.

The soaking rainfall that started around 10 a.m. caused teachers on those picket lines to pack up their strike signs and seek shelter, but only from four strategic sites due to a change in picket policy.

"We are now picketing four major spots: the high school, Franconia Elementary, Indian Valley Middle School, and West Broad Street," Lukridge said, "because they appear to be getting the most traffic, and we want to make the most obvious presence we can."

Last Tuesday when the strike began, teachers picketed at all nine district public schools, and the construction site of the future Souderton Area High School, but not this week.

"We were out there one day, where the new high school is under construction, but we found out that most of the laborers there were non-union and were not going to honor our picket line anyway," said Lukridge.

Teachers are out on the picket lines in three different shifts from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but if bad weather like Tuesday's rain storms happens, they are free to seek safety.

"There are no rules about the number of days we have to be out there, just as long as we're picketing because we're on strike," Lukridge said.

"Regarding being on the school property, there are some laws we can't violate, but as far as picketing there are no laws that we are aware of," he said.

And if their numbers look a little smaller than that 448-17 strike vote taken two Thursdays ago, that's because teachers are up to other things too.

"Other teachers are performing non-picketing tasks, such as communications. We have a task force committee that has multiple jobs in it, and some of our members who are not out on the strike lines are members of our settlement task force, who are trying to get information out to people," Lukridge said.

Some of those committee members have been helping update the SAEA's Web site,

www.saea.info, which now features a Q&A section, salary and health-care facts, and updates on negotiation progress.

"Let's face it, we're at a disadvantage here. We don't have a public TV channel like the school district has, we don't have the opportunity to mail to everybody in the district, we don't have that database, so what we have to do is try to get that information out in other ways," Lukridge said.

For example, Lukridge said that statistics provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Education show that the district collects the sixth-highest tax revenue in Montgomery County, but spends the least per student of the 22 county school districts.

"We can prove our side of the story by the PDE information," Lukridge said. "This is incontrovertible, the numbers that the school district has to supply to the PDE, and we're hoping that people can have that information that will back our position, or their position."

Are they seeing much support from the public? From some, but not from all, he said.

"We have bashers and we have backers, there are people who are supportive and people who aren't," he said.

"Striking is never a pleasant thing, and it's not what we really set out to do, but we think it's necessary to get us past this labor impasse," Lukridge said.

By: Tony Di Domizio

More than $25,000 in taxpayer money versus $0 in taxpayer money.

That is the estimated difference in costs between the Souderton Area School District and the Souderton Area Education Association during the current teacher strike.

Aside from the amounts spent on an outside public relations firm, the district is paying its school board attorney and lead negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik around $22,500 in a retainer fee. In addition, Sultanik said he charges $175 an hour, not including bargaining.

The bargaining price per hour, he said, is around $175.

He said he has been involved in bargaining talks since Aug. 25.

The $175 per hour charge, he said, is part of the flat retainer fee per year.

When asked how many hours he has charged thus far, Sultanik said there is no calculation for hours.

"There are no billings out for August," he said. "It won't be out until the end of the month."

Gary Smith, lead negotiator for the SAEA, is paid by dues from the teachers.

"I get a salary for the year and I'm assigned a cluster of associations and Souderton is one of mine," Smith said.

SAEA President Bill Lukridge said the education association pays dues to the PSEA. PSEA employees get paid from the dues collected by local education associations.

"We are paying out of our wallets," Lukridge said. "Not one tax dollar goes to pay for Gary Smith. Whether he shows up one day or no days, he is still paid as a general employee of PSEA and he is not paid extra."

"Sultanik," Lukridge said, "has negotiated for eight out of 11 school strikes. Does that surprise you? He's making himself a millionaire on the children's backs."

The SAEA wants very much to use the district's "excess funds" in its reserve fund to pay for a new teachers contract.

"We will not use up the whole reserve fund," Lukridge said. "If collected wealth is at the sixth level out of 22 levels, and the district collects taxes at the sixth level and spends money at the 22nd level, what does that say? Shouldn't they be spending at the same level as they are collecting?"

According to state law, the district must save up to 7 percent of its budget in the reserve fund, Lukridge said.

"There is over $17 million in the reserve, and the total reserves reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Education is in excess of $17 million," he said. "They would be required to keep $5 to $7 million."

Sultanik said the district has multiple funds that it has in place, which includes an undesignated and designated fund balance.

The question of the use of reserve funds is presumptious on the part of the union, he said.

"The reason for the fund balance relates to capital revenues of the district," Sultanik said. "If the roof goes bad, we need to have that money.

"It's our rainy day savings account," he said.

He said the fund balance must not exceed 8 percent of the total budget, but the district can have designated portions of the budget in excess of that.

"In my opinion, it is irrelevant to the negotiating process," he said.

Several phone messages left for Souderton Area Superintendent Charles Amuso and Brenda Jones Bray, director of business affairs, were not returned when seeking further information for this story, including information on the reserve funds and fees being paid to the outside public relations firm being used by the district during the strike. The public relations firm also did not return calls.

Sultanik said the aid ratio also is a factor, which is a figure based on the real estate market value, personal income and age ratio of the district. He said Souderton Area ranks sixth to the lowest in aid ratio in the county.

"The union wants to ignore it, but it's the most relevant issue," he said.

Sultanik added that Souderton Area falls short in the amount of commercial tax base, compared to its surrounding districts.

Futhermore, Sultanik said the state Department of Education has the district saving money by 2012 to fund the Public Schools Employee Retirement System.

He said because PSERS invested in Enron and Worldcom and the state Legislature increased costs by 25 percent, the amount of retiree compensation for teachers in the state fund became underfunded.

This, he said, results in paying a huge spike in the cost of funding retirement payments by 2012.

"There needs to be money in the fund so it wouldn't go to the taxpayers in 2012 with a huge increase in taxes," he said. "If we pay that money to the teachers now, there will be no money to pay at that point in time."

Lukridge said that spike in the PSERS has not happened yet and might not happen at all.

"They want to correct a problem down the road, but they anticipate something that doesn't exist yet," he said. "Is it possible it may happen? It may. Is it possible it won't? Yeah."

The district also claims the money in the reserve fund is needed to go toward the new high school that will open in 2009.

Lukridge said the district has already taken out a bond issue on the high school. Just like a mortgage on a house that a homeowner wants to pay off, the district wants to pay off the bond early.

Yet Lukridge said like any homeowner, paying off a mortgage early would be nice, but there are other bills to pay, like increased compensation for teachers.

"We are losing teachers who are looking elsewhere for higher-paying jobs for the same position in other schools," he said. "The district needs to recognize they are losing good people."

He said the education association's proposal to the district would not cause an increase in taxes.

"That's a fact," he said.

Sultanik said the real issue isn't the money the district has available to pay for each teacher, but rather what is a fair increase for teachers.

"It's about if the current demand of 8.2 percent a year on average for each of the next four years is an appropriate number to do that," he said. "There isn't a school district in the region that has gotten 8.2 percent a year increase in any contract."

Nationally, he said, 3.6 percent increase a year is the most common.

"The argument regarding how much money we have and how much money we are spending pales in comparison to the 8.2 percent increase," he said.

While Sultanik said the district's offer of a 2.5 percent increase each year for three years remains, Lukridge said that 2.5 percent is merely the total salary package increase.

"Two percent of $60,000 and 2 percent of $30,000 are two different numbers," Lukridge said. "If you are at a $37,000 range and you move up one step, your percentage will probably be different than someone making $60,000 and moving up one step."

He said the education association has to incur increment costs from one step to the next in the salary schedule, and those increments alone will eat up 2.5 percent.

"How will 2.5 percent ever get Souderton Area School District off the bottom?" Lukridge said. "That 2.5 number is one that continues to make the district on the bottom for the next three years. How can you keep a teacher at those levels?"

In order to go through the salary guide, he said a 5.5 percent increase would need to be added to the 2.5 percent just to be equal to everyone else.

"It shows you how low we are compared to other school districts," he said. "We have two sets of numbers and we need a compromise between those numbers. That's why we will negotiate that at the bargaining table. Their number of 2.5 will guarantee Souderton to be at the lowest."

Video of interviews conducted on September 11, 2008 with SAEA President Bill Lukridge and SASD negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik.

By DAN SOKIL
Staff Writer

Both Souderton Area School District negotiator Jeff Sultanik and Souderton Area Education Association President Bill Lukridge were interviewed by The Reporter this Thursday for their take on the teachers strike.

The following questions and answers are taken from an interview conducted with Sultanik.

Question: What do you see as the main sticking point at this time?

Sultanik: "As we speak, the parties are unfortunately at an impasse, and have not made progress on the main issues. In fact, if you quantify the amount of money between the union and the school board's positions, the total amount is approximately $13 million at issue, which is very significant in terms of the difference between positions."

Question: Please clarify the current dispute over "8.2 percent per year"; where does that figure come from and what does it mean?

Sultanik: "The union is proposing a 5.98 percent increase in the total district payroll for 2008-09; a 9.4 percent increase for 2009-10; a 7.14 percent increase in 2010-11; and a 6.94 percent increase in 2011-12. That translates to a total payroll of $44,758,906 at the end of that contract, and if you subtract from that the agreed upon base year payroll it would translate into a 32.78 percent increase over four years in the amount of the district's yearly payroll.

If you apply those standard negotiating rules that we had agreed on, you start with $33,707,992 in base salaries. Based on the salary schedule we received from the union, that number would go from $33,707,992 to $35,722,823, which is a 5.98 percent increase. Using the same numbers of the union's, for the second year that number would again increase to $39,080,212, which is a 9.4 percent increase. It's a simple application of the formula, and if you do the same for the next year, the total increases to $41,870,270, which is a 7.14 percent increase, and for the last year you go up to $44,758,906, which will average out to 8.2 percent per year. We have yet to see any numbers from the union that disprove these numbers."

Question: Explain your understanding of the reserve fund - how much is in it, what it can and cannot be used for, how this could or could not fund salary increases for the teachers.

Sultanik: "The reserve fund is composed of a number of different components. Currently $4.2 million of the fund is marked for Capital Reserve; for needed capital programs like new roofs, fixing heaters, upgrades on buildings. We have lots of plants, and we need to have that money reserved to care for that. It's been in place for a long time now, and we draw upon that on an as-needed basis.

"Four million dollars is currently in the fund for principle and interest payments, which is part of our high school relocation plan and is needed to fund increased debt service, to avoid a spike up in taxes... North Montco Technical Career Center is in the middle of considering a $12 million capital improvement program, and we have put away $2.9 million for that, we contribute along with North Penn, Perkiomen Valley, Wissahickon and Methacton school districts... When Bill Lukridge says that money belongs to the teachers union, we have already ascribed it to other purposes."

Question: What do you feel the public needs to know about negotiations and does not?

Sultanik: "A state mediator once told me, I think it was Jill Leeds Rivera, who is the mediator in this case, that if both parties are ready to negotiate a settlement, it can take place in three to four hours. Usually parties, by this state, are maybe one or two million dollars apart, but we're $13 million apart...

"I do want the public to know that the school board does care very much that children are out of school. They are parents and grandparents, and devote extensive time, but are elected to be stewards of the public monies, and the board needs to balance the interests of parents against those of the taxpayers in the community, and arrive at a fair resolution."

By DAN SOKIL
Staff Writer

The following questions and answers are taken from an interview conducted with Lukridge. Video of the interview can be seen at www.TheReporterOnline.com.

Question: What do you see as the main sticking point at this time?

Lukridge: "There are two main sticking points, salaries and benefits. We are far apart on salaries; what we're asking for is what the average teacher in Montgomery County earns ... we're only asking to be average. We're finding more and more teachers are leaving Souderton to go elsewhere, and we'd like to stop that revolving door ... Teachers should be able to look at their own school district and say they are adequately paid."

Question: Please clarify the current dispute over "8.2 percent per year"; where does that figure come from and what does it mean?

Lukridge: "We each have numbers that we bring to the bargaining table: you make an offer, I make an offer, and we go back and forth. Eight-point-two is a parameter at the negotiation table, and we have our number and they have their number, that's what negotiations are all about... If our salary schedule is taken up by 2.5 percent, as the district is proposing, we still are so far behind what the average teacher will be paid in Montgomery County. We need way, way beyond that 2.5 percent; if we accept a contract at 2.5 percent, we would continue to be at the bottom of the county."

Question: Explain your understanding of the reserve fund -how much is in it, what it can and cannot be used for, how this could or could not fund salary increases for the teachers.

Lukridge: "That fund has kept growing. Since 2005, when that fund was at $9 million, according to facts presented by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, now that fund is in excess of $17 million; there's been almost a 100 percent increase in that reserve fund. The district will say they want to use that reserve fund for buildings, but I think that money should be spent on the children, not on buildings, and when you know you need to compromise and keep quality educators, it costs money to do that, so where do you want to put that money? Into educating students or into buildings?"

Question: What do you feel the public needs to know about negotiations and does not?

Lukridge: "I think the public has not really heard anything about how hard it's been to negotiate with the school board. We started negotiating in January, and gave them a full proposal in March, and did not see a full proposal back from them until June... They keep bringing back the same thing over and over again, it's like being in that movie 'Groundhog Day,' because the contract they proposed on Sept. 5 was the same as they had proposed on Sept. 1, and the same proposal they made back in January.

"One other thing that has disturbed the teachers during the course of the strike is the loss of our insurance coverage without our being notified. The district can continue to pay for our coverage during the strike, and be reimbursed after the strike is over... I find it to be unconscionable that the school district never let us know ahead of time that there was a possibility that we would be denied coverage. There were teachers who found out about that when they went to their doctor's office, or tried to get some medications or have procedures done, and were met with a statement that if they had AmeriHealth they were not covered anymore. That took them completely by surprise... it's not so much that we're not insured, because we're covered by COBRA now, but it's the fact of how it happened. They had to know they would do this ahead of time, because they did it so quickly, and that was what was very hard to take."

By: Dan Sokil

SOUDERTON — Matt Rauch was supposed to be starting his second week of first grade Monday, but because of the Souderton Area Education Association's strike, he's having different kinds of fun instead.

"We've been doing all sorts of things to take advantage. We already went to the zoo, and went bowling the other day and it was weird because we were the only people there," said his mom, Meghan Rauch.

On Monday, Matt spent the afternoon at the Indian Valley Boys & Girls Club, practicing his skateboarding moves while his mom and sister watched from outside the fence.

"He'd be going into first grade at EMC," Meghan said. "He was very disappointed last Tuesday, because he was so excited for the first day of school."

Fortunately for Matt, the rest of his friends at the Boys & Girls Club were there extra early, from 1 to 7 p.m. instead of the normal hours of 3 to 9 p.m., to help take his (and their) minds off the strike.

"I hate the strike, because it's kind of boring to be home all the time," said sixth-grader Justin Sholly, helping out at the club's desk on Monday afternoon.

"I'm kind of mad that it happened, but I like helping out here, and I like watching people skate. I think I'll try it for the first time tomorrow," he said.

Upstairs, Justin's older brother Matt, who would be a junior at Souderton Area High School, has instead been spending his afternoons keeping an eye on younger kids, like would-be seventh-graders Anthony Nelligan and Nate Misrar.

"I don't like it, because I don't get to see my friends at school, and I don't like making my own

lunch every day; when I'm there I don't have to," Anthony said.

He and Nate usually spend their time at the Boys & Girls Club playing football over the summer, but can't figure out where most of their friends have gone since their teachers went on strike last week.

"There aren't enough people here to play football anymore, it's weird," said Nate, who's still having trouble getting used to being out of school.

"I guess being out this long, it's like, you never know how much you don't want something to happen until it does," he said.

Even the older teens like Matt, one of the Boys & Girls Club's teen counselors, can't help but wonder what else has been affected by the strike.

"I actually made a little speech at the last school board meeting. I was wondering, they're putting like 3,000 kids out on the streets, what do they think those kids are all going to do?" said Matt.

His theory is that most of them are staying home with their families, because the Boys & Girls Club has seen a dramatic drop-off in visitors since Tuesday, when the strike began.

"A lot of parents must have really changed their lives dramatically, because we had like 300 kids in here during the summer and now there are, how many, 30 or 40. I guess they're all staying home, but there's a lot of stuff they can do here," Matt said.

That includes video games, pool tables and, for teens like Gabriel Stangl-Richle, shooting hoops.

"Last week we went to Atlantic City, because it sounds like we won't be able to when it's time for our normal vacation," he said during a timeout for a water break. "Other than that I've just been coming here and hanging out a lot."

Incoming senior Sarah Luchansky has been working at the club too, but worries even more about the start of the school year.

That's probably because she is the editor in chief of the high school's student newspaper, The Arrowhead. Their most current issue is sitting in empty classroom, already out of date with sports scores and weather reports prepared for Sept. 2, the first day of school.

"People don't even realize what kind of ripple effect this strike has been having for us. We had like a three-week boot camp over the summer to get that thing ready, but as soon as anybody sees it the whole thing will be old news," Luchansky said.

"Then we have the October issue coming up, but can't come in and work on it, and we can't even talk to our teachers about it because they're out on the picket lines," she said.

Her graduation project, a soccer clinic she'll host at the Boys & Girls Club in October, may have to be pushed back too, but she doesn't even know when her date to present her project will be because of the uncertainty.

"Everything's so empty here, and it's not just affecting the kids who go to Souderton schools. The ones from everywhere else might think their friends aren't here, and then they don't come here either," Luchansky said.

And even though she loves the family atmosphere at the club, those AP exams and SAT tests are coming closer each day whether students are in school or not, and their vacations are getting shorter with each day the strike continues.

"I talked to a little girl today, and asked what school she's in, and she said, 'I'm not in school, my teachers are on strike, but I miss my school and I miss my friends.' I love my job, but I just want to be back in school too," she said.

For more information or to register for the Indian Valley Boys & Club, call (215) 723-2402 or visit www.ivbgc.org.

By: Dan Sokil

Negotiations between the Souderton Area Education Association and the district's school board broke down Friday, less than an hour after both parties sat down at the bargaining table.

Photo by Geoff Patton

"The board came in and did not want to talk about what was already on the table, they wanted to talk about items like what happens after a strike, make-up days, retroactive pay and other items," said SAEA spokesman Rob Broderick.

Friday's meeting was the first face-to-face encounter between the dueling parties since Souderton Area School District teachers went on strike Tuesday.

But the meeting did not last long.

"Despite the Souderton Area School Board's hope that negotiations would yield movement on a tentative agreement, negotiations between the school board and the SAEA were suspended a short time ago, when the union failed to counter the school board's most recent salary proposal," school board negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik said in a prepared statement.

A press release from the school district Friday afternoon stated that the school board's current salary proposal is for increases of 2.5 percent per year over three years.

Bill Lukridge, union president, said neither side agreed to modify their proposals nor change their positions at Friday's meeting.

"The district presented us a document that included technical work stoppage items added to it. We will review these items when we return to work," Lukridge said. "We are awaiting the next negotiating meetings date that will be set by the state mediator."

In addition to the post-strike items brought up Friday, both

sides apparently still disagree on sticking points such as salary increases and health-care costs.

"The mediator simply said today that there was no reason to continue negotiating," said Broderick. "I think it's clear the board is more interested in punishing teachers than in negotiating."

The last collective bargaining agreement between the SAEA and the school board expired on June 30. The last negotiation session between both sides before Friday had taken place Sept. 1.

On Aug. 28, the SAEA voted 448 to 17 in favor of striking. After no agreement was reached at negotiations held on Labor Day, a work stoppage began on Sept. 2.

As of press time Friday, no further negotiation dates had been scheduled by the state mediator.

By: Dan Sokil

Day two of the teachers strike in the Souderton Area School District has brought no progress toward resolving the dispute between the district's school board and the Souderton Area Education Association, the teachers union still picketing district schools.

"We did not have another meeting to negotiate today," said SAEA head Bill Lukridge,

"Jill Rivera, the state-appointed mediator, called Gary Smith, our negotiator, and asked if we could, and we're willing and able to meet at any time," he said.

That mediator has also been in touch with school district negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik, but he agreed Wednesday morning that no meeting dates have been set.

"I was actually expecting another phone call from the mediator today, but I spoke with her a few minutes ago and so far there is no meeting today," Sultanik said.

While the two parties have found no time or place to negotiate face to face, both sides had a thing or two to say about why the district's sports teams are still playing games while school district classes are not in session.

"First of all, you have to understand that people who are coaches are not all union members, and they're not all teachers, so they would not be bound by a work stoppage," said Sultanik.

Last month, the school board approved supplemental contracts totaling more than $135,000 for 37 coaches and instructors.

Nineteen of those contracts are for district employees from Souderton Area High School and four more are employed at Indian Crest Junior High School.

"We would prefer that they not cross the picket lines, obviously," said Rob Broderick, spokesman for the SAEA.

"Certainly people can interpret that as sports being more important than academics, and that is unfortunate, but it's totally the district's call," he said.

School district Superintendent Charles Amuso said that the district's intention is to offer every thing possible to students, noting the contracts for sports coaches and directors are separate from the bargaining agreement with the union.

"That's settled, and those contracts are signed, so it's up to the coaches. We're not going to shut out students from (sports) programs they want to participate in," Amuso said.

All of the district's athletic programs are still being offered because enough coaches are available and willing to handle those programs, Amuso said.

"I would like to offer as much as we can for our students; they want to get back involved in school activities, and the sports aspect, those contracts are settled differently from the teachers contracts," he said.

Requests for comment from high school athletic director Tom Quintois were not answered by press time on Wednesday, but Sultanik had a different take to share.

"I think the teachers union should be the one addressing that issue," Sultanik said, "and I think the question becomes whether or not certain students should also be hurt if their coach is one of the ones who is there and ready to coach children."

The district's strike contingency plan announced on Monday states that all decisions on sports will be made on a case-by-case basis.

"Remember that many of those students may be eligible for scholarships and the like, and could get hurt as much as students in the educational process if they're deprived of scholarship opportunities for their sports," Sultanik said.

Broderick, the SAEA spokesman, disagreed that the teachers were the only group making sports decisions.

"The board is in total control of this agenda, and we don't think they should have these activities going on while there's a strike going on, but there's no law that prevents that," he said.

Meanwhile, the debate on the strike rages on at The Reporter's Web site. The online comment section has seen more than 60 reader comments posted since last Thursday night's school board meeting, 26 of those coming since the strike began at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Bob Keeler contributed to this article for The Reporter.

By: Dan Sokil

The first negotiation session since Tuesday's strike began in the Souderton Area School District is scheduled for today.

A district press release Thursday afternoon announced that the session will begin at 11 a.m. at an "undisclosed location."

Representatives of the district and the Souderton Area Education Association (SAEA) will both be present, along with state mediator Jill Leeds Rivera.

Disagreements on teacher salary, health benefits and working conditions are among the issues.

"When we returned to the bargaining table on Labor Day, we brought with us a revised salary proposal and made an attempt at compromise. We hope the teachers union will do the same when we meet tomorrow," Jeffrey Sultanik, the school board's head negotiator, said Thursday.

Sultanik also rebutted rumors that members of the SAEA have lost or will lose their health insurance coverage during the current work stoppage.

"We had to, under the terms of our Green, Red and Blue plans, terminate coverage for individuals who are not actively employed with the school district, and when they're on strike, our position is that they're not actively employed," Sultanik said.

However, Sultanik said he has been in contact with representatives for the union and both have agreed that if somebody in a self-insured program has an insurance claim, they'll be reimbursed by their carrier within the 60-day COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) period for any expenses they may have.

"Even though the insurance plan has technically been terminated, number one, nobody in the teachers union is going to get hurt and not have insurance coverage availability during the work stoppage, and number two, I think the problem is that the union did not completely explain this possibility to their members," Sultanik said.

A letter from AmeriHealth, the district's insurance provider, will explain the details to each employee, but rumors about a health insurance cutoff are "much ado about nothing," Sultanik said.

SAEA head Bill Lukridge

agreed, calling the rumors a "non-issue."

"We have AmeriHealth, and everybody's covered as of today," Lukridge said Thursday.

"It's almost like a paper cutoff in coverage, because they all still have coverage; under federal law you can't cut off your reimbursement for health care without 60 days' notice, and that is not what happened here," Sultanik said.

Teachers union spokesman Rob Broderick said on Thursday that his group was examining and evaluating the details of the school board's action.

"Apparently there's been a big misunderstanding about the board's actions," Broderick said. "We're still trying to clarify exactly what happened and until we understand it ourselves, we can't really say what the ramifications are."

But the ramifications of another announcement Thursday should be immediately clear: the timeline for an end to the strike could be in sight, now that the state's Department of Education has designated Sept. 23 and Oct. 8 as "critical dates" for the strike resolution process.

Under Pennsylvania law the current strike by the SAEA must end by a date when 180 days of school instruction can still be offered to students by June 15.

That "critical date" has been calculated as Sept. 23 by the Department of Education, three weeks after the start of the strike on Sept. 2, according to a statement Thursday from the DoE's Office of Elementary/Secondary Education School Services Unit.

"I wish we could come back in sooner, and have a settlement sooner, but I haven't heard a thing; I've been out on the picket line all day," said Lukridge.

If no agreement has been reached by then, after Sept. 23 the school district and the SAEA will be required to enter an arbitration process before a three-person panel: one person nominated from each side of the dispute and one neutral arbitrator.

The panel will take contract offers from both sides within 10 days, and both parties' proposals would then be posted for a 10- day public comment period, during which hearings would be held to discuss the proposals.

According to Act 88, the panel is required to consider the following factors: "1) The public interest; 2) the interest and welfare of the employee organization (the union); 3) the financial capability of the school entity (district); 4) the results of negotiations between the parties prior to submission of the last best contract offers; 5) changes in the cost of living; 6) the existing terms and conditions of employment of the employee organization members and those of similar groups; and 7) such other documentation as the arbitration panel shall deem relevant."

Within 20 days of the panel's last hearing, they will issue a written determination to both parties.

Both the SAEA and the school district must either accept or reject that determination within 10 days; if both accept, the agreement becomes a binding contract, but if either rejects the recommendations, a second strike could occur that would have to end by Oct. 8 (the second critical date determined by the state DoE).

"It is our sincere hope that the SAEA does not deny our students an education until this critical date is reached. This would truly be tragic," said Sultanik.

Meanwhile, regarding the modified school schedule, although the district will have to make up instructional days lost to the strike, a district press release has confirmed that no classes will be scheduled for Saturdays or Sundays, or on any of the following days:

Nov. 27 or 28 (Thanksgiving), Dec. 24, 25 or 26 (Christmas), Jan. 1 or 2 (New Year's Day), May 25 (Memorial Day), April 10 or July 4.

The district is still providing transportation for the community's private schools, such as Grace Christian School in Telford, Penn View Christian, Christopher Dock High School and the Souderton Charter School, all of which are open as usual.

By: Dan Sokil

Instead of going to their first day of school Tuesday morning, students in the Souderton Area School District were greeted with closed doors and picketing teachers.

Actually, the only students there on Tuesday were 16 or so seniors, holding their own sit-in across the street from their striking teachers.

"We're not really here to support the teachers or the school board, but we feel that we're the only group that really hasn't had our voice heard," said senior Bianca Cavacini.

Cavacini and fellow senior Liz Kramlik started organizing their gathering just Monday night, but by Tuesday morning they along with fellow seniors had set up signs and chairs and were tossing Frisbees and footballs in the parking lot.

"We just want people to know that we want to be here; I'm a senior and this affects me too," said Kramlik.

"I'm taking AP classes this year, and we'll have to take those tests in May even if we haven't gotten that far in our classes yet," Cavacini said.

As she spoke, about 40 members of

the Souderton Area Education Association, the union representing the district's teachers, marched in front of the district's high school, many of them wearing the school's colors of red and white and carrying signs that read "On Strike" or "We Want a Contract."

"We're on strike today because we were not able to reach a contract agreement with the school board," said SAEA president Bill Lukridge, "so we've been out here since 7 a.m. and we have people out at nine of the district schools, plus at the new high school (being built in Franconia)."

School district officials, including Superintendent Charles Amuso and district negotiating head Jeffrey Sultanik, held a press conference Tuesday to share their perspective on the school stoppage.

"Today's usually a day that we as educators look forward to every year, but I am very disappointed to say that we have an indefinite delay in the first day of school this year," Amuso said.

Sultanik described how far apart the two sides remain in their respective contract proposals, noting that the SAEA's latest contract proposal seeks an average 8.2 percent salary increase over each of the next four years.

"I've been doing these kinds of negotiations for a long time, and I'm not aware of any teachers union that has elected to go out on strike and hurt their children's education while they have an 8.2 percent increase on the table," Sultanik said.

Furthermore, the district negotiator explained that while the Souderton Area is the largest school district by land area in the county, the tax base to support that kind of salary increase just does not exist.

"In the Souderton Area, we just do not see the extent of commercial development you see in eastern Montgomery County, which means tax revenues that do not produce children too," he said.

"We do have a strong tax base, but the growth we see is primarily in residential areas. We're in the business of educating students in this district, but it does cost money to educate each one of those students," Sultanik said.

The two other unions negotiating new contracts, those for the district's secretaries and teaching assistants, have not gone on strike and are awaiting negotiation dates from the state arbiter, said R. Bradley Clemens, assistant to the superintendent/director of human resources.

"The secretaries union, in fact, is reworking their proposal, and we've just received that notice within the last week," Clemens said.

"Workers whose activities are tied to the student schedule have been informed that they need not report to work, and their year will be adjusted once the student's year has been adjusted," he said.

Classes for those students could now be on hold for as long as three and a half weeks, if no agreement is reached before a target date soon to be announced by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The date, as required by law, would be the latest date by which students could still get 180 days of instructional time before June 15, 2009, while still taking national and local holidays into account.

"At that time, both parties will enter into a mandatory nonbinding arbitration process," Sultanik explained.

In that process, a three-person panel consisting of a neutral arbitrator and ones chosen by the SAEA and school board would hold hearings and take testimony before issuing a set of public recommendations which each party must vote on.

"If either party doesn't accept the recommendations, the teachers union then has the right to strike again," Sultanik said.

"That 'second strike' is typically only about a week in duration, and typically happens around late spring, depending on the schedule in that type of situation," he said.

Lukridge expressed his hope on Tuesday that the process would not get nearly that far.

"The state mediator has the phone numbers of both sides, and said she would get us back together as soon as is feasibly possible," Lukridge said.

"I would hope within this next week that we have another session, but we'll have to go by her schedule," he said.

By: The Reporter

A last-ditch effort on Labor Day to prevent Souderton Area School District teachers from striking before the official start of school today has failed.

After six hours of contract negotiations between the Souderton Area School Board and the Souderton Area Education Association both parties remained far enough apart on salaries that the state mediator decided to end negotiations, according to a statement the district released Monday night through publicist Leeza Raffel.

Official from both parties later confirmed there will be no school today; classes will not resume until further notice.

Instead, the school district's more than 500 teachers are expected to march in picket lines starting at 7 a.m.

Bill Lukridge, union president, said the district's offer - salary increases of 2.5 percent per year over three years - was hardly different from the contract it presented the teachers in January.

"We would still be the lowest paid teachers in Montgomery County," Lukridge said shortly after negotiations ended.

He said he didn't want to talk about specific details of the union's proposed salary increases, only that "we attempted to make a settlement that was fair and equitable."

"This is a school district with $10 million in reserve funds beyond what's required by law," Lukridge said. "But the school district wants to keep us at the bottom with their salary propos

al. Our members cannot accept that.

"Teachers deserve to be paid according to their worth."

Jeffrey Sultanik, district solicitor and chief negotiator for the school board, said the teacher's union made salary demands with increases of 5.98 percent, 9.4 percent, 7.14 percent and 6.9 percent in each year of a four-year contract.

Sultanik said the increments amounted to about a 32.8 percent increase in payroll over four years, or an average of 8.2 percent per year for each year of the contact.

"I know of no teachers union that would walk out on their jobs and hurt children with an 8.2 percent salary increase on the table," Sultanik said. "I'm appalled they're going on strike."

Sultanik said the strike could "go the distance" over the next three and a half weeks. That's roughly the time, he said, when the teachers would be required to return to the classroom in compliance with Pennsylvania Act 88.

If a settlement is not reached three and a half weeks after the start of a strike, both sides would enter into non-binding arbitration, Sultanik said.

Lukrdige said he was disappointed a settlement couldn't be reached.

"When all we asked the board to do was bring us up to what the average teacher earns in Montgomery County," he said. "We only asked to be average even though our students are above average in their PSSA scores."

Sultanik said the state mediator will be working with both parties individually over the days ahead. No new talks have been scheduled.

According to a strike contingency plan released Aug. 28, school and district offices will be open on their regular schedule during the strike.

Child care for children in kindergarten through seventh grade is being provided by the Indian Valley YMCA located at West Broad, Franconia, and Oak Ridge Elementary school for grades kindergarten through fifth.

Grades sixth and seventh child care will be held at the Indian Valley YMCA building. For more information contact the Indian Valley YMCA at (215) 723-3569.

Sports and extra-curricular activities will continue on a case-by-case basis. Decisions will be reported via the district's Web site, SATV-Channel 28, and the hotline. Information will also be available by calling the high school athletic office (215) 723-7630.