CBRSD approves teachers’ contract

BECKET – Following a lengthy negotiation process, a new teachers’ contract for the Central Berkshire Regional School District has been approved.

The Central Berkshire Education Association approved the contract on May 7, followed by approval from the CBRSD School Committee on May 9.

“The provisions seem to be fair to both sides,” said Dalton Select Board Chairman John Boyle, who assisted the school committee with the negotiations.

The contract is effective dating back to Sept. 1, 2012 through Aug. 30, 2015.

New features of the 2012-2015 contract include:
-An across-the-board salary increase of one-and-a-half percent for each of the three years of the agreement
-Extension of the teachers’ work year by two days (to 186 days), effective for the 2013-2014 school year, for the purpose of affording more time for professional development
-Additional compensation for CBEA unit members of one percent for two additional days in teachers’ work years
-Adoption of a revised educator evaluation system based on the January 2012 model from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)
-Establishment of a three-working-day requirement for teachers to post student grades online after an assignment has been graded and returned to students by their teachers
-Coverage of the Wahconah Regional High School and Nessacus Regional Middle School Virtual High School online learning programs, enabling the restoration of VHS to Nessacus starting in the 2013-2014 school year.

Community Innovation grant

Continuing the hard work in education, the plan for countywide professional development to assist in adopting the Common Core Curriculum Standards is moving forward.

Eight districts – Adams-Cheshire Regional School District, Berkshire Hills Regional School District (BHRSD), CBRSD, Lee Public Schools, Lenox Public Schools, Northern Berkshire School Union (Clarksburg, Florida and Savoy), Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District (NBVRSD) and Southern Berkshire Regional School District (SBRSD) – came together to apply for a Community Innovation Challenge grant through the Massachusetts Department of Revenue this winter.

With funding from the grant and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), the Berkshire County Curriculum Frameworks Project will begin June 26-28 at Berkshire Community College, where teachers from throughout the county will begin large-scale curriculum mapping.

“This is a large project,” CBRSD Superintendent William J. Cameron said, adding it would likely take until some time in the fall to complete.

Dr. Cameron is credited by other participating superintendents with leading the charge on getting this project off the ground.

“Bill Cameron has been our quarterback on this,” Lenox Public Schools Superintendent Edward W. Costa II previously said.

All involved districts seem to see this as the beginning of moving toward more regionalization in education.

“It’s an important start [in working together],” Dr. Cameron said of the project.

Posted by Catherine M. Krummey on May 16, 2013. Filed under Education News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry