Those who cannot remember the past...

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

Recently I asked Mary Jane for some background information on when the last time Lowell Joint had gone to impasse. Mary Jane went the second mile and provided this background information. It was helpful to me. Maybe it will be helpful to you, the reader. (Note that "In the Know" has had its bias for years.)

Enjoy!

Well, it was a trip down memory lane after school today. I wanted to really research the dates for impasse.

Our first impasse occurred in 83-84. We started negotiations with the district in May 1983. We filed for impasse in December, 1983. The mediator came twice and we reached agreement with the district by February 29, 1984.

Our second impasse was in 2007. Howell was hired July 1, 2006. During the Spring of 2006, Ron would not negotiate the contract which was to expire June 30, 2006 since he was interim Superintendent.

So after Howell started in July, 2006, Julie Mayhew and I went to her in August, 2006 and offered to rollover the contract for a year since she was new to the district and we were in such a financial mess. Her response was a definite "no" because she had concerns about our contract. Part of her concern was the fact that we were to get a funded COLA that year if we rolled over the contract and she was opposed to it.

So we started to negotiate in Nov. 06, which was the soonest that the district was ready. We had 10 meetings, mostly after school hours for us, and then impasse was declared on March 30, 2007. We met with the mediator on May 8, 07 and June 1, 07 and officially reached an agreement on Thurs June 28, 2007.

So we were without a contract for one full year. It was devastating to read IN THE KNOW for all those months. I have kept the copies and they are all the district's point of view. Also remember that she used district money to communicate with the parents. We were getting In the Know frequently and we then had to publish our own information to combat her point of view.

It was truly ugly and no wonder I blotted out all the dates and information. Our contract for that period was for 2006-2009. In Spring of 2009, Howell did agree to roll over the contract with the MOU for freezing step and column since no one really knew about the crisis in the state budget. So we are at the end of our one year agreement and trying desperately to negotiate another contract.

Hope this helps with the "perspective" and now you are up-to-date with all the correct dates.

Mary Jane

(Special thanks to Mary Jane for letting me share this with you.)