Peabody teachers reach tentative contract agreement

PEABODY – Peabody teachers may soon be able to put their picket signs away.School Committee member and negotiations liaison Dave McGeney said Friday morning that both parties – the city of Peabody and the Peabody Federation of Teachers – have come to a tentative agreement.”Both sides are relieved,” he said. “We both really worked hard and were committed to getting this done, to putting this behind us so we could sort of get back to letting our teachers do what they do best, which is educating our children.”The negotiating team met Thursday night and were making such progress, they kept working until the wee hours of the morning, said McGeney.”I think we wrapped up around 1:30 a.m.,” he said.The last negotiated contract expired more than a year ago and the School Committee and the teachers’ union have been negotiating ever since.After seeing little progress, both sides agreed to hire a mediator last May in an effort to reach a common ground sooner rather than later.Throughout the summer, however, teachers took matters into their own hands and organized rallies, marches and picketing protests throughout the city to express their frustration to the general community.Peabody Veterans Memorial High School teacher Kim Catron said last month that a lot of time has been spent picketing and negotiating over “something that is rightfully ours in the first place.””I think both parties are happy to have reached an agreement,” said Bruce Nelson, president of the Peabody Federations of Teachers.Details of the contract, by law, cannot be discussed until the terms are finalized, said Nelson.When asked how great of a compromise was made, he simply said, “Well, negotiations are really that – compromises.””There are always big sacrifices,” McGeney said in response to the same question.Nelson said it will take a few more weeks for attorneys to work out the language of the agreement. When that’s taken care of, the contract will be taken to the union for ratification, then to the School Committee for a vote.”Were it not for the logistics issue, it would be even sooner,” said McGeney, noting that both attorneys are scheduled to be out of town for the next week. “It was a good working relationship. I publicly want to thank the union for their hard work, the leadership for their hard work, and of course the teachers for their patience.”