BOE Reaches Contract Settlement with Two Groups, Welcomes New Appointees

At the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Board of Education meeting June 24, one day after the high school's graduation, board members welcomed three new appointees: Sasha Slocum as the new principal of McGinn Elementary School, Scott Bortnick as the new principal of Brunner Elementary School and Ryan Miller as Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School's new assistant principal for athletics.

The board also acknowledged Kimberly Richards, former vice principal of Terrill Middle School, who accepted a position as a principal at the Deerfield Academy in Mountainside. She will be joining another former Terrill Middle School principal, Jeannette Baubles, who now works as Mountainside's chief school administrator.

The board approved contract settlements with two bargaining groups: the supervisors, which include about seven district employees, and the principals and assistant principals, which include 10 to 12 district employees. The district's contract with the two groups expired last year, and the educators were working according under the terms of that expired contract.

The new contract settlement is a two-year agreement, board president Trip Whitehouse said in a phone interview Wednesday. Both groups will receive a 3 percent raise for the first year of their contract, which ended June 30. They will then receive a 1.5 percent raise for the second year of their contract, which started July 1.

The board had already budgeted for the 3 percent raise, Whitehouse said. Meanwhile, the second year's 1.5 percent raise coincides with state-mandated health insurance contributions now required of Scotch Plains-Fanwood's educators.

According to a state law that took effect May 22, public educators working under expired contracts or signing new contracts (both were the case for Scotch Plains-Fanwood) must agree to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their healthcare benefits.  

"If the contract was signed last year, they would not have had to make this contribution," Whitehouse said. "But within three years, every employee [in every school district the state] will be doing it."

The board is still negotiating a contract with the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Education Association, the bargaining and representative group for the district's teachers, teaching aids, and other non-administrative educators.