The Executive Board of the Village Grande Civic Association wishes to acknowledge the West Windsor-Plainsboro School Board’s response to meet with the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Association. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss reopening the teachers’ existing three-year contract.
The resulting agreement by the teachers and their union to a salary freeze for six pay periods (or three months) in the 2010-’11 school year should only be viewed as a partial initial step.
It is the opinion of the Village Grande Civic Association’s Board that much more needs to be done than a three-month salary freeze. This freeze should have been for a longer period of time, and it was extremely premature of the West Windsor-Plainsboro School Board to agree to extend the existing three-year contract another year and to grant a 3.38 percent salary increase for the 2011-’12 school year.
How anyone can argue for a raise of any kind in these dire economic times is unconscionable, particularly with many of our fellow residents experiencing the stress of losing their jobs, their homes, their life savings, and, in the case of senior citizens, frozen fixed incomes. These dreadful economic conditions are not short-term. They could extend well into this upcoming decade before any degree of financial normalcy returns.
The Village Grande Civic Association’s Board insists that the West Windsor-Plainsboro School Board invite the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Association back to the table to once again reopen the contract and demand the following: Freeze all teachers’ salaries during the 2010-’11 and 2011-’12 school years and require they accept a minimum deduction of 1.5 percent of their salaries to be applied to their health and pension benefits. The teachers would then be demonstrating that they truly are “sharing the pain” with everyone else in West Windsor and Plainsboro. The fact that we are dealing with teaching professionals, we feel certain our children will still receive the best possible education that they are entitled to.
Edward M. O’Mara
President
Village Grande Civic Association
