BADGER Board to vote on teachers pact

The teachers approved the contract Labor Day.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
KINSMAN -- The Badger Board of Education was to vote on a proposed teachers contract today. Its approval will avert what would have been the first teachers strike in the district's 41-year history.
Teachers and board representatives pounded out the tentative contract in a nine-hour session with a federal mediator that ended 2 a.m. Saturday morning.
Members of the Badger Education Association, the union representing teachers, approved the tentative contract in a vote Monday.
Union officials declined to discuss the contract pending approval by the school board.
Likely approval: Approval by the board was likely, but not certain, said Joseph Logan, the only school board member at the negotiation session Friday. He said the tentative contract includes pay increases for teachers, the main sticking point in the negotiations, which began March 27.
"We went well beyond where the board really wanted to go," Joseph Logan said. "It will put us on a step deficit-spending program, which puts the board at an ill-at-ease situation."
Wanted raises: Teachers have argued that they have not received raises six out of the last 16 years.
"I'm not happy with it [the proposed contract], but I'm satisfied with it," said Eltha Logan, a union negotiator and past president of the BEA.
Both sides agree that negotiations were especially tense this year.
The teachers, whose contract expired Friday, threatened to walk out Wednesday. Last week, the school board approved hiring substitute teachers at up to $160 a day to replace them.
"The situation very rapidly deteriorated," Joseph Logan said. "There were threats and intimidation this year, and that is not what you normally see in a rural area."
"It is wonderful that we have the potential to avoid an extremely divisive and nasty strike," the school board member said.
Union members agree, Eltha Logan said.
"We all feel a sense of relief."