March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Brewer education technicians reach accord

The Brewer School Committee on Monday formally ended one year of negotiations with the district’s education technicians and ratified a 5 percent increase for this school year.

The Bangor School Committee also met. The main item on its agenda was incorporating national education goals into its own Year 2000 plans, which it did unanimously.

The Brewer School Committee approved 5-0 a two-year contract, retroactive for one year. The contract will affect 29 education technicians, formerly called instructional assistants.

In what is the first contract established for the education technicians, hourly rates were increased for level one and level two technicians to $8.28 and $8.70 for 1991-92.

A straight salary was set for the third-level technicians at $15,157. And, according to negotiators, an additional 2 percent will be given to those with 10 or more years of experience in the district.

Ginny Waldo, chief negotiator for the education technicians, said hard economic times and the fact the union had been formed in April 1990 were reasons for the long negotiation period.

Brewer Education Association President Terry Hopkins said it was not easy to reach a contract settlement. “We had to go through mediation and (we were) then on the brink of fact finding before we were able to complete negotiations,” he said.

In Bangor, Superintendent James Doughty told committee members that Bangor had already incorporated many of the national goals initiated by President George Bush in its own Year 2000 plan.

Among the six national goals to be reached by the year 2000 are: having all students start school ready to learn; a 90 percent high school graduation rate; U.S. students being first in the world in science and mathematics achievements; and having all schools be drug and violence-free environments.

While Doughty said progress has been made in many of the areas, he cited another national goal, that of adult literacy and lifelong learning, as needing increased attention.

“Our goals certainly give credence to the goal of lifelong learning, but we can probably strengthen our guiding principles in terms of adult education,” he said.

The Bangor School Committee also approved hiring two study hall monitors at the high school. Doughty pointed out that while the additions would cost $8,000 each, a $30,000 additional reduction in instructional assistant positions this summer because of class schedules leaves a net savings of $14,000.

As part of this year’s budget, nearly seven full- and part-time positions were eliminated from the high school. That number was increased to nearly eight positions, Doughty said, because class schedules made it possible to avoid filling some vacant positions.


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