SWAMPSCOTT — The School Committee voted unanimously to ratify the Teacher, Tutor and ESP Contracts during Thursday evening’s meeting.
Committee Chair Glenn Paster began the discussion by first giving a bit of background on the matter.
“The School Committee and the Committee of Negotiators have been meeting with the Swampscott Education Association (SEA) since about November or December-ish, and there was planning prior to that,” Paster said.
He cited his previous concerns with being able to complete the three contracts before Superintendent of Schools Pamela Angelakis stepped down from the role in July.
“And it’s the dedication and hard work, not only from my fellow committee members, but also from the School Department negotiators… And the groups that we met with over the last several months has been an amazing experience,” Paster said.
Paster continued, “I’ve done this for a while… I’ve learned so much about the ins and outs of what the teachers go through every single day, and I think on the teacher’s side, they’ve learned what we had to deal with as far as budget goes, and what our glass ceilings were, and how we could punch through those if we had to.”
Paster said some of the goals with the ESP contract “were to bring them to what we could afford as a livable wage. Our other towns around us that have had some challenges, ESPs tended to be one of those issues.”
He summarized highlights from the contract: “To increase the work year for ESPs to be 182 days to align with the teachers and tutors…. FY26, we all knew, was going to be a reset year. To bring hourly rates to be more competitive with our comparable communities, and recognize the need to have the wages be reflective of the ESPs, their role and importance in the school district.”
The committee voted unanimously to approve the contract, then Paster moved on to talk about the Tutor Contract. “The importance of what the tutors do and continue to do, I think, has fallen under the radar… and I’m hoping with this contract, and the folks from the unit who sat in, I look forward to hearing from them again.”
After a quick vote, the contract passed. Paster then continued with the Teacher Contract.
“This is by far the largest unit that we negotiated with,” Paster said. “All of us have kids in the system and have done this for a while… It was important for us to learn what we could learn, and we worked as two teams to make this happen, and I’m so excited for all of it.”
Vice Chair Amy O’Connor shared her thoughts on the work that went into negotiations.
“It’s true for all of these contracts, but particularly for our teacher contract… I don’t think there was a member here who was not looking around the state and seeing what was happening in other districts, seeing work-stoppages, disruption of learning, which also creates a pretty crummy work environment,” O’Connor said. “And it was really important to us that we don’t be that district.”
O’Connor continued, “I want to thank Superintendent Angelakis for creating an environment that allowed for interspace bargaining… This doesn’t happen in any other district that we’re aware of, and I don’t think it should go unspoken.”
“One of the things that made this unique was that all five of us participated,” Committee member John Giantis said. “Each one of us brought a unique set of skills to the table.”
The SEA released an online statement regarding the committee’s unanimous votes to ratify the contracts.
“In the span of 5 months the SEA, School Committee and District Administration worked tirelessly to come to an agreement on all three contracts. We worked together to solve issues and stay within the financial framework needed. The SEA is grateful for the relationships we have built over the last several years, which allow us to continue to work in a collaborative nature to give our staff and students what they deserve,” the organization said.
