HTA President Nick Cream discusses the Holyoke Teachers Association’s vote of no confidence for the Holyoke Public Schools bargaining team during a press conference on Dec. 17.
Reminder Publishing photo by Tyler Garnet
HOLYOKE — The Holyoke Teachers Association hosted a press conference on Dec. 17 to announce that members of the HTA overwhelmingly voted no confidence in the School Committee’s bargaining team following months of stalled negotiations.
Eighty six percent of the HTA membership participated in the vote, and 97% voted no confidence in the School Committee’s bargaining team.
“This vote is a clear sign from our membership that we are not willing to accept receivership 2.0,” said HTA President Nick Cream. “For more than a decade, we lived under state receivership that limited our ability to advocate for ourselves and for our students. All we are asking for is a contract with working conditions and a salary scale that is in line with our surrounding communities, and to value educator experience and education. Now, as we attempt to bargain an authentic contract for the first time, the School Committee is showing no interest in having open and constructive negotiations,”
After the press conference, the HTA, whose contract expired June 30, delivered the letter of no confidence to the School Committee during its Dec. 17 meeting.
Holyoke Public Schools and the HTA have been negotiating since February. The next negotiation session will take place on Jan. 8. The HTA and Holyoke Public Schools hosted its 11th bargaining session on Dec. 14.
Cream said although the contract has expired, the educators operate on the previous contract that was already passed. He explained, “It’s really just creating a lot of stress and tension for people, because there’s a lot of unknown. You got people who have worked here for many years that want to know what my retirement is going to look like; you got new teachers that are asking if they are going to commit to a career in Holyoke.”
HTA’s priorities include professional salaries that retain experienced educators, industry standard personal and sick days, modern and humane parental/family leave, and comparable length of school day and school year in line with neighboring communities
HTA is also seeking a districtwide health and safety committee, better work leave, professional development, class-size and caseload limits, educator autonomy and fair and equitable staffing policies.
“The priorities we put down on the table are really just what other districts have in their teacher contract,” said Peter Duffy, HTA member and English teacher at Sullivan Middle School. “I think a lot of people assume that we’re asking for the moon and the stars, but really receivership has held Holyoke back for so long that teachers just come for a couple years and then leave.”
The HTA is pushing for improvements in working and learning conditions that will start to slow the high turnover rate among educators in the city.
According to Duffy, over the last 10 years, Holyoke Public Schools have had 1,300 teachers leave.
“That’s 1,300 mentors, 1,300 relationships with students, and they are gone to other districts. These people aren’t leaving teaching, their leaving Holyoke because Holyoke is not offering adequate sick time, they’re not offering education based pay lengths, they’re not offering a work year that makes sense for people with families,” Duffy stated.
Duffy also mentioned that Holyoke is one of three school districts in Massachusetts that has a pay scale based on evaluation.
“You don’t make any more money if you don’t get a certain level on your evaluation,” Duffy said. “People joke with me all the time because I have a high attendance rate; we have a very high attendance rate here in Holyoke for teachers because people don’t want to use their sick time, because they don’t want to be docked on their evaluation. What it’s leading to is teacher burnout.”
Robert Williams, a world history teacher at Holyoke High School North, said the proposed contract changes need to be made because, “every one of my students has had multiple transitions mid-year with teachers who have left. That has impacted their ability to trust adults, that has impacted their ability therefore to get the same education that their peers in Chicopee, in Westfield, in West Springfield and in Northampton have been able to get.”
