Lynn school board votes tonight on teachers’ unpaid day

LYNN – The Lynn School Committee will meet with members of the Lynn Teacher’s Union in executive session tonight to finally determine whether teachers and administrators will be authorized to work one day without pay to avoid district- wide layoffs.The meeting is scheduled less than a week after Superintendent Catherine Latham sent out over 120 layoff notices to department employees in order to make up a $500,000 cut to the department’s salary line. The layoffs, which were not unexpected, would not be needed if the committee votes in favor of the unions tonight.If the committee does not vote in favor of the day off, the layoffs will go into effect Monday, March 16, meaning that the department will have less than a month to move students and teachers with longevity into new classrooms, all as MCAS testing looms in mid-March.While members of the teachers, clerks and administrators unions, along with independent administrators such as principals and members of the superintendent’s staff, have all voted to work one day without pay, the sacrificial decision cannot become a reality without a 4-3 majority vote by the School Committee.Although members of the committee have repeatedly expressed their support for teachers, a few minor details in the Teachers Union agreement may derail the effort.In the vote taken by the Teachers Union, they agreed to work one day without pay under the condition that any member who retires through the Massachusetts Teacher Retirement System or the city of Lynn Retirement System in the next three school years be reimbursed for the day in their retirement pay. The agreement also states that if federal stimulus money earmarked for the Lynn Public Schools exceeds $500,000 in fiscal year 2009 the staff members will not have to work a day without pay.Some Committee members said this week that they are still in favor of saving teachers regardless of the agreement, while Committee Chair Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. reiterated his feelings that he would only support the vote if unions do not require future compensation for the move.”There are things in that agreement about (the stimulus money) – anything along those lines cannot be part of it,” said Clancy. “I won’t sign off if that is a part of it.”Committee Vice Chair Patricia Capano said Tuesday she was glad to see the teachers and administrators vote to take a day off and is ready to support the initiative to keep classrooms intact for the remainder of the year.”I am for it. I certainly support the furlough day and I support the teachers,” she said. “I hate to see the classroom get disrupted and employees get disrupted with a 30-day notice. This was the best plan out there because Plan B (layoffs) is not pretty.”Capano also gave Latham and other staff members credit for agreeing to take a day off alongside the teachers, calling the move a true team effort.”I give this superintendent credit – not that our former superintendent (Nicholas Kostan) wouldn’t have done the same thing, because he would have – but the administration has been very respectful of what the teachers have done,” she said. “It is the context of the team within the Lynn Public Schools, you never see the administration want to be separate in this situation.”The committee will meet and vote in executive session tonight and then return to a regular public meeting to ratify the vote. Since the School Committee is considered the collective bargaining entity of the department, it must approve the decision by a 4-3 majority vote, regardless of Clancy’s final decision on the matter.