Mar 28, 2018 3 min read

CHARLEROI – Charleroi Area School Board has ratified a seven-year contract with district teachers.

The school board voted 7-0 to accept the contract Tuesday night, with school directors Ken Wiltz and Elaine Pappasergi abstaining. Adele Hopkins, school board vice president and co-chair of the contract committee, said the contract is the product of two sides being committed and working together.

“Our teachers understand our financial situation, and we wanted to give them a fair contract. Both sides compromised,” she said.

The current contract expires Aug. 20, and the new contract runs from Aug. 21 to Aug. 20, 2025. Superintendent Edward Zelich said the seven-year contract gives the district a concrete cost during that time.

“Our primary goal was to determine projections for instructional costs for the next seven years,” he said.

One of the main cost savings in the new contract is the change in health care providers and teacher insurance contributions. The change in provider will save the district about $160,000 in the first year of the contract with the Allegheny County Schools Health Insurance Consortium.

Teachers will contribute annually 6 percent or 9.5 percent of their salary, depending on the plan they choose.

Teacher salaries in the district have 17 steps. Under the current contract, the starting salary for a new teacher with a bachelor’s degree at step 1 is $35,000. In the final year of the new contract, the step 1 teacher salary will be $40,250.

“The total two percent increase in the starting salary over the life of the contract will allow the district to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers,” Zelich said.

At the top scale at step 17, for a teacher with a master’s degree, the salary will increase from the current $79,950 to $88,000 at the last year of the contract. In the first year of the contract, top step teachers will receive a $400 increase.

Also in the negotiations, middle school and high school teachers agreed to move their start time up to 7:22 a.m. to provide supervision of students if adjustments in the bus arrival times are needed.

Zelich said the district will receive savings from retirements, noting that the veteran teachers will be replaced with teachers at an entry level scale. He added teachers will have an opportunity to plan properly for retirement in terms of pension and health care benefits changes. Retiring teachers will be offered single health care insurance coverage until they reach the age of Medicare eligibility. The district has 116 teachers and approximately 1,525 students.