Instead of heading straight to their classrooms Friday morning, about 60 teachers and paraprofessionals at West Parish Elementary School on Concord Street gathered by the front entrance in a show of solidarity as they and educators in three other North Shore communities signaled the start of a work–to-rule job action.
Standouts were held at all of Gloucester’s public schools Friday, Gloucester Teachers Association Vice President Matt Lewis said in an email.
With the teachers union and the School Committee failing to reach a new contract by the end of August when the old deal expired, the teachers union voted Sept. 30 for work-to-rule at all of the city’s public schools for the foreseeable future, but not every day.
To ease the burden on families and educators, the Gloucester Teachers Association staggered the days when work-to-rule will be in place, Lewis said. The schedule is:
Monday: Preschool.
Tuesday: O’Maley Innovation Middle School.
Wednesday: Beeman Memorial and West Parish elementary schools.
Thursday: Gloucester High School.
Friday: Plum Cove and East Veterans elementary schools.
Friday’s standout as a kickoff to work-to-rule. Educators wore crimson union T-shirts and stood out to the strains of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna to Take It” playing over loudspeakers.
“When we fight, we win,” they chanted.
They lined up for a photo and at 8:30 a.m., as paraprofessionals were scheduled to report, the educators filed into the school.
“Work-to-rule is to show solidarity and to show the public and some administrators exactly what it is that we do outside of our contractual hours,” said West Parish fifth-grade teacher Beth Parkhurst. She is the school building’s representative for the Gloucester Teachers Association and serves on the union’s negotiations team. “Normally we are in the building now getting ready for school but we are staying outside to show people that these are the extra times and hours that we give the school district and our students.”
Ongoing negotiations
Teachers are working under the terms of a three-year agreement that expired in August. Work-to-rule means educators will withhold or refuse to perform voluntary activities not set forth in their collective bargaining agreements according to a schedule.
In a statement Thursday, the School Committee said it was “blindsided by this GTA and MTA’s decision because negotiations are proceeding at a pace very similar to all prior teacher contract negotiations.” The School Committee disputed the claim by the teachers unions “that negotiations recently stalled.”
A negotiation session is scheduled for Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at Gloucester High in a meeting that is open to the public with negotiations sessions scheduled through December, according to the School Committee.
The School Committee’s statement said that work-to-rule “means that teachers will withhold or refuse to perform activities that are not set forth in their collective bargaining agreement such as answering family emails after the end of the school day, or grading papers and exams.”
In an email, Lewis rebutted the School Committee assertion regarding grading papers and exams.
“That is totally false and they know it,” Lewis said.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association said in a statement Friday “grading, lesson planning, and emailing families” are customary responsibilities that fall within teachers’ contractual responsibilities.
“Entering work-to-rule, educators will cease performing non-customary duties outside contractual responsibilities,” the statement said. “Educators plan to cease non-customary duties one day a week, which may include offering extra help outside of required hours, chaperoning, writing letters of recommendation, and other additional voluntary responsibilities outside of the contractual day. The action demonstrates how much educators routinely give beyond what is required of them.”
“To set the record straight, we are fighting for a fair contract to improve our students’ learning environment, which is our educators’ working environment,” Rachel Rex, a Gloucester High teacher and Gloucester Teachers Association president, said in a prepared statement.
“When our veteran educators leave for better pay and better working conditions at neighboring school districts, it harms students,” Rex said. Unfilled “paraprofessional positions harm our students and create unsafe schools. Educators are at a breaking point, and our work-to-rule action is us collectively saying: enough is enough!”
North Shore Educators United said 99% of educator unions in Beverly, Gloucester, Marblehead and Revere voted to enter into work-to-rule.
Paras fighting too
In addition, the Gloucester Association of Educational Paraprofessionals have been working under the terms of an expired contract for more than 400 days. Negotiations started in March 2023 and the contract ran out in July 1, 2023. Paraprofessionals are seeking a “living wage” among other things, and talks have gone to mediation.
In April, teachers’ and paraprofessionals’ unions voted to combine.
“So we are now negotiating on everyone’s behalf,” Parkhurst said, “and trying to streamline this process so that we can get this done.”
Both unions are affiliates of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and represent more than 400 educators in Gloucester Public Schools.
Contractual hours vary from school to school, Parkhurst said. At West Parish, teachers report at 8:48 a.m., and paraprofessionals at 8:30 a.m. “so we are going in with the paras,” Parkhurst said about when teachers would enter the building.
When asked about sticking points, Parkhurst said: “They have rejected almost every proposal that we’ve given them and many of them without any discussion. Many of them without any research and a lot of it has to do with school safety, hours for teachers to prep … and that’s all we are asking for is time to do our jobs on our own.”
When asked if wages were the major sticking point, Parkhurst said they had not discussed wages until their most recent negotiations on Sept. 23.
“They didn’t give us a wage proposal until our last negotiations,” she said.
“We are in mediation,” said Margaret Rudolph, a veteran special education paraprofessional at West Parish. She said there were a variety of reasons for the impasse “but really living wage is a big one for us because we really make very little money.”
“My message is that we want a fair contract and we want to be treated as educators just like the teachers and we do as much as they do,” she said.
Salary proposals
According to an update on the School Committee’s website on the exchange of opening salary proposals by the negotiations teams, “GTA leadership is proposing that teacher salaries increase by a minimum of 28% and a maximum of more than 50% over four years.”
The School Committee said the Gloucester Teachers Association/Massachusetts Teachers Association proposal would raise the top salary from $97,500 to $125,000 annually and increase other teachers’ salaries from $80,000 to $125,000.
The School Committee’s opening salary offer would increase the top teacher pay to $104,800 in three years while less veteran teachers would receive increases of 15% to 25%.
The School Committee team said it “is committed to working with the GTA to come to agreement on important and complex issues such as increasing teacher salaries, expanding leave benefits, and ensuring we agree to a contract that helps improve student learning, engagement, and achievement.”
