Teacher's rally at Palmer High

On Thursday morning, a simple phone call became the first step in ending the long-running battle for a labor contract for Mat-Su teachers, but it came after one of the most dramatic examples of the rift that has formed between the Mat-Su School District and the Mat-Su Education Association.

Several hundred teachers crowded into the main lobby of Palmer High School Wednesday night at 4:30. It was to be a show of solidarity in an effort to encourage the Mat-Su Borough School Board to authorize the signing of a two-year labor contract for teachers, based upon an arbitrator's recommendations.

The gathering was announced last week in an e-mail from Mat-Su Education Association president Barbara Morris to union members. That e-mail, along with another memo, came on the heels of a Feb. 15 negotiation meeting between union and district representatives.

Apparently, the two sides came away with different impressions of that negotiation meeting. "I left that meeting thinking it had been positive," said Mat-Su School District spokesperson Kim Floyd. "I went back to my office ready to prepare a press release announcing a tentative deal."

In the memo from Morris, the meeting was characterized as somewhat less positive.

"On Thursday [Jan. 15], your MSEA negotiations team asked the district to accept the arbitrator's report in full," the memo stated. "The district turned us down. They don't think you are behind us."

The memo went on to state that the district was only able to offer a three-year contract, and suggested that the third year would be based upon the same dollars recommended in the arbitrator's two-year plan.

District spokesperson Kim Floyd, who was present at the meeting, said that was an inaccurate characterization of the proceedings.

"George Stuart [MSEA's spokesperson] opened the meeting, saying the arbitrator's agreement wasn't everything the teachers wanted, but that they'd be willing to accept it." Floyd said that Stuart also said MSEA would be willing to talk about a third year. At that point, according to Floyd, administration spokesperson Saul Friedman said the district would be interested in a third year, but would need to know what that would look like. Stuart then countered that MSEA was not willing to discuss a three-year deal until a two-year contract was in hand.

Board president Mike Chmielewski, who also attended the meeting, said it didn't matter to him who pitched the three-year proposal first, but that the big picture was the important thing. He did express disappointment in the communication to MSEA members, however.

"When the communication to the membership came out, it did not accurately describe things," Chmielewski said. "It said the district turned down their proposal, and we had not done that."

The MSEA memo also stated that district representatives would take the plan to the school board at Wednesday's meeting. Chmielewski felt the statement was contradictory to the previous assertion that the district team had rejected the union's offer.

At the Wednesday rally, the teachers' message was that they'd accept nothing short of the proposed two-year deal. The board empowered the district's negotiating team approve such a deal, perhaps signaling the end of the heated dispute.