Note: The following statement is from Saucon Valley School Board attorney Jeffrey Sultanik. It was issued Friday, in response to the Saucon Valley Education Association’s request for a five-day extension to the April 10 deadline to accept a “bottom line” contract offer the school board floated on Feb. 26. The school board’s three-member negotiating committee subsequently voted not to extend the deadline–rationales for which are presented in the statement–which means the “bottom line” proposal is now off the table. Teachers are still scheduled to meet Wednesday. A Saucon Valley School Board meeting will be held Tuesday, April 14 at 7 p.m. in the Audion room at Saucon Valley High School.
This morning the Saucon Valley Education Association requested an extension of time for the alleged purpose of conducting an association vote on April 15, 2015 regarding the school board’s bottom line proposal dated Feb. 26, 2015. That request has been rejected and the mediator and the union has been notified of the withdrawal of the board’s bottom line proposal as per the email below.The rationale of the board’s negotiating team is as follows:1. The union has known about the board’s bottom line proposal since Feb. 26, 2015. Indeed, the union met with the board on March 6, 2015 to go over all of its questions relating to the proposal. On March 23, 2015 the association prepared a counterproposal that was substantially more costly and far apart on a number of the language issues in the board’s bottom line proposal. The association has always been aware of the deadline today for the withdrawal of the board’s bottom line proposal.2. The association is now arguing that because the association president was/is on personal business in North Carolina yesterday and today, the Association could not meet with its own members either in person or virtually to conduct a vote on the board’s proposal. Where was the Association for the past seven weeks?3. The association has stated that there are additional questions and clarifications about the board’s bottom line proposal, even though all of their questions were answered on March 6, 2015. Since March 6, 2015 the board was not presented with any questions either through the mediator or by the union regarding the board proposal.4. Prior to the decision to deny the extension and to withdraw the bottom line proposal, the district was informed that the union leadership did not even plan to make a recommendation to its members about the board’s bottom line proposal on April 15.5. The board has also learned unofficially that on April 15, 2015 that the association plans to request authorization for a strike vote from its membership. The board negotiating team believes that it has been the intention of the union leadership to demonstrate its strength by taking the bottom line proposal to the membership, voting it down and then authorizing a strike. However, no one at the district can understand why the union waited to the day of the deadline (9:58 a.m.) to make this last minute extension request.6. The team is of the opinion that if a teacher was presented with a student who requested an extension of time on the due date to hand in his or her term paper after having almost 7 weeks of time to complete it, most teachers would deny that request.
