Dear Members,

The MOA for the 2021-2024 contract  passed tonight.  87.5% voted YES and 12.5% voted NO.  232 members voted.

Thank you to all of you that took the time to vote.  The Negotiation sub-committee of the School Committee will be voting on the contract this Tuesday at their last meeting.  More information will be coming to you once that step is completed.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,
Eileen Barry

Dear Members,

The tentative agreement from the Negotiations Team is now available to view in the Negotiations Blog or the "Contracts & Agreements" section of the website.  Please read it over and address any questions you have to the negotiations rep from your building.  We will have a general MEA meeting tomorrow June 15th at 4:00 via Zoom in order to present the changes to the contract the MOA is proposing.  I will send out a link later today for that meeting.  

The Negotiations Team and Eboard are hoping to have the MOA ratified before the end of the school year.  With that being said, we would like to suspend the 10 days posting by-law in order to have the voting done on Friday.  We have done this all year with the numerous MOAs that have been done this year.  Please speak to your negotiations rep if you have any questions about this.


Thank you and have a good day!

Best,
Eileen Barry

Dear Members,
There will be a General MEA meeting on Tuesday, June 15th at 4:00pm.  The meeting will take place over Zoom.  The original plan was to have the meeting this Tuesday, June 8th.  The Negotiations Team needs to have one more meeting this week to finish up our bargaining.  We are hoping to be able to share a tentative agreement with the membership late this week or early next week.  Pushing the meeting off one week will give members a chance to look over the tentative agreement and come to the meeting with questions.  The Zoom link will be sent out by next Monday. The meeting will be recorded.
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The link below is important for anyone who needed to postpone their licensure renewal due to the state of emergency because of the pandemic.  
LIcensure Renewal is back!

by Center for Education Policy + Practice
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Next year's Eboard members will be the same as this year with the exception of Parliamentarian.  Fred Massicotte will be in this position for next year.  Fred teaches at Whitcomb.

Building elections will occur in early September at all the buildings due to teachers moving from building to building and having teachers return from remote to in-person.

The last monthly raffle will be done later this week.  The winners will be receiving a gift card to Trombetta's on Farm Road.  It can be used for ice cream, mini-golf or plants.
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Thank you for all that you do!
Best,
Eileen Barry

Dear MEA Members,

Below is the link to the voting ballot for next year's District Executive Board. The link will be available until 6pm on Wednesday, May 19th.  We do not have anyone running for Parliamentarian. Please consider putting your name in as the write in if you wish to hold this position for next year.  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BL5H7NZ

Building elections will happen at the High School and Whitcomb before the end of the school year. Building elections for the elementary schools will be occurring in September. There is quite a bit of movement with the elementary staff. Eboard made the decision to hold the elementary elections after the beginning of the next school year to give staff a chance to settle into their new positions and have the opportunity to hold a union position in their new building if they choose to do so.

Negotiations for our new 3 year contract is beginning this week with a training for the Interest Based Bargaining that will be done.  Our first official date to start the negotiations is Wednesday, May 26th.  We have other dates scheduled for May 27th, June 2nd and June 3rd.  We hope to be able to have a new deal to vote on before the end of this school year.  Any questions please reach out to your building's negotiation rep.

As a reminder for anyone that needed to take a sick day due to COVID vaccination side effects, the form to fill out was emailed out a couple of weeks ago and is posted on our MEA website.  Fill out the form and give it to your building principal to sign and be sent to Doug Dias.

A spring MEA general meeting is being planned for early June.  When a date is solidified the membership will be notified.  

Raffle winners were chosen for May.  The following members will be receiving a gift card to Zarape Restaurant on Maple Street.  Congratulations to Tina Petty (Goodnow), Erin Kelly (Kane), Erin Casey (Whitcomb) and Frank Travassos (Whitcomb).  There will be one more raffle for the year in June.

Thank you for all that you have done, are doing and will continue to do for the remainder of this school year.

Take care!

Best,

Eileen Barry

Dear Members,
I hope you are all well!  There are not many updates but here is the information to share:

• The full-return MOA should be ready at some point this week for members to review and then vote on.  Eboard voted to have this posted for only 5 days instead of 10 days per the by-laws as we have done with the previous MOAs this year.  We will make sure to work around the vacation week so that everyone has a chance to look it over before voting.  A SurveyMonkey link will be sent out for the voting.
• The Negotiations Team is getting ready to set dates with the School Committee to begin talks for our next 3 year contract.  We will be sending out 2 separate surveys to gauge what areas of the contract are most important to the membership to negotiate.  We will be looking for areas outside of yearly salary increases as this is always the top priority.  Look for the first survey to be coming out soon.
• There have been changes to the Negotiation Team recently.  Elton Thomas is the chair of the team now and Keriann Yutkins is a new member of the team from Whitcomb.
• The March raffle was a gift card to Linguini's on route 20 in Marlborough.  The winners were Rochelle Dumond (ECC), Mary Fantoni (Kane), Laura Nolan (Richer) and Steve Bredberg (High School).
• The April raffle is a gift card to The Coffee Loft on Lincoln Street in Marlborough.  The winners are Cristina Caporale (Goodnow), Joanne Tostoes (Jaworek), Sara Edwards (Whitcomb) and Chris Henry (High School).  These will be sent out within the next couple of days to your school.

Enjoy every minute of the upcoming vacation!
Best,
Eileen Barry