Souderton teachers on strike

Teachers in Montgomery County's 6,900-student Souderton Area School District, carrying signs that proclaimed 'We Want A Contract,' walked the picket lines this morning.

Several dozen teachers picketed outside the high school shortly after 7 a.m. They wore red clothing, the district's school color.

Other Souderton teachers were expected to picket outside the district's middle school and seven elementary schools.

Classes were cancelled today and no new contract talks have been scheduled. Teachers on the picket line declined to comment this morning.

More than six hours of negotiations yesterday left the two sides far apart on wages and health-care issues. The last strike in the district was in the mid-1980s.

The Souderton district is the only one in the Philadelphia area where a strike is likely this week, as school begins for both public school and Catholic school students.

Souderton school officials will notify parents each day what will happen next, with automated phone calls and updates on the district's Web site, www.soudertonsd.org.

Although no further talks have been scheduled, mediator Jill Leeds Rivera will be in touch with both sides, working to bridge the gap, officials said.

Some child care will provided at local YMCAs, with parents paying, but registration has closed, the district said. Decisions about sports and extracurricular activities will be made on a case-by-case basis.

"The school board is disappointed that we have not been able to resolve this contract," said spokesman Jeffrey Sultanik, a lawyer who is assisting the board in negotiations. "We had a number of different official and unofficial proposals that crossed the bargaining table today. We believe we made a good-faith effort to resolve the issues."

Gary Smith, a staff member with the Pennsylvania State Education Association who is working with the 512-member Souderton Area Education Association in negotiations, said: "The board doesn't realize that Souderton is no longer a sleepy little countryside township. It's a place where everyone wants to live. People are moving there in great numbers, and the teachers deserve to have the same pay and benefits as other teachers in Montgomery County, which they do not now.

"I believe this has been a deliberate attempt by the board to push the teachers into a strike, hoping they will lose public support," Smith said. "But I believe the public fully understands what is going on and will support the teachers."

Sultanik said that the teachers were asking for a four-year contract with average payroll increases of 5.98 percent in the first year, 9.4 percent in the second year, 7.14 percent in the third, and 6.9 percent in the fourth.

The school board is proposing a three-year contract with increases of 2.5 percent each year.

"I know of no teachers union that has gone out on a work stoppage with these kinds of dollars on the bargaining table, or of any school district that would accept them," Sultanik said. "It's unconscionable."

Smith said that the percentage figures are misleading because they include normal increases teachers get for moving up the seniority scale. The teachers now have the lowest starting salary in Montgomery County - $37,323 - and the union is trying to upgrade the lowest pay, redistribute pay on some other seniority steps, and give the highest-paid teachers a 3 percent increase, Smith said. "We are no longer trying to get up to even the Montgomery average [pay], but we want to get some of the way there," he said.

On health care, the district now offers three insurance plans, with teachers contributing 10 percent of the premium for the most comprehensive one, 5 percent for one that has fewer benefits and more co-payments, and no premium contribution for a bare-bones plan. The board wants to eliminate the most comprehensive plan, to charge teachers a 4 percent premium contribution for the plan that used to have no contribution, and to charge a 12 percent premium contribution for the other plan.

The board also wants to institute individual and family deductibles of several hundred dollars that teachers would have to pay before the district would start picking up the expenses on the low-end plan.

The board estimates that it would save about $300,000 a year with its proposals, Sultanik said.

The union wants to leave the co-pays the same and is asking for improvements in some aspects of coverage, which would cost the district an estimated 3 percent more.

Differences also remain about how much time teachers would have to work and what they would do during working hours.

Contracts remain unresolved in 11 South Jersey school districts, but strikes there are barred by law. Talks in the Philadelphia School District have been extended for 60 days. In Montgomery County's Cheltenham School District, a tentative agreement was reached last week; the school board is to vote on the pact next Tuesday. Contract talks continue in four other Pennsylvania suburban districts: Bristol Borough, Neshaminy, Palisades, and Springfield, Delaware County.

Contact staff writer Dan Hardy

at 610-627-2649 or dhardy@phillynews.com.