After nearly five months of negotiations, the Harvard Teachers Association and the School Committee are on the brink of a new contract. The two parties have signed a memorandum of agreement for another one-year contract that includes a 2% cost-of-living increase for teachers. No other provisions have yet been made public.
After a marathon five-hour negotiation session April 8, the HTA and the School Committee exchanged proposals and responses almost daily for the following week. The memorandum was signed by both parties late last week.
Teachers were voting online over vacation week on whether to accept the proposed contract. The deadline for their votes is Monday, April 26, at 3 p.m., so the result will likely be known when the School Committee meets that evening.
The School Committee will formally consider the contract in executive session Monday before its public meeting. If the committee agrees to ratify it, then the members will take an official vote as soon as the public meeting opens.
After voting on the contract, the School Committee will open its public hearing on the school budget for fiscal 2022. The budget hearing is legally required but usually sparsely attended. In many recent years, no members of the general public at all have come. However, the use of Zoom has led to higher public attendance at many town committee meetings, so this year’s school budget hearing may have a broader audience.
