TO: APEA Membership
FROM: John Napolitani, President
Sean Hamilton, Vice President
DATE: January 19, 2010
The APEA Negotiations Team has attempted to bargain with the Board of Education in good faith, while remaining focused on the issues to settle this contract, we have clearly hit a stone wall. The Board has turned its back on the dedicated staff members of the Asbury Park School District. They used the excuse of the current economic situation, as well as our refusal to sign off on the RTTT grant application NOT to handle their moral and legal obligations to this school district.
With the Board’s posturing in mind, our mediator advised us he recommending to PERC that we move to the next step in negotiations: FACTFINDING.
We need to be VERY clear that this process WILL be very long and drawn out. We may NOT have an initial meeting for at least three months. The process may take more than one year. The comfortable bubble that our profession has been in for decades has finally burst. This is an official call to action by EVERY staff member in this district. Jobs are on the line. There’s no sitting on the side waiting to get a handout from the Board. Tenure WILL NOT protect from the onslaught of the Board. Watch your “P’s and Q’s” because the nitpicking of the dedicated staff is about to begin.
Had we agreed to sign off on the RTTT, our UNION would begin to be dismantled by the State of New Jersey based upon the serious implications this grant will have on our collective bargaining. The grant requires a 20% increase in our contact time with students; which equates to OVER 36 INSTRUCTIONAL DAYS. The Board can’t negotiate OUR expired contract, yet they moved forward with a grant application that requires MANDATORY NEGOTIABLE ITEMS which have serious financial ramifications on this school district that CAN”T be funded.
In closing, we are headed for extremely tumultuous territory. We have a Board majority that DOES NOT respect us. The State DOES NOT respect this profession. It is extremely IMPERATIVE that EVERY APEA member read our memos, newsletters, professional journals and website, asburyparkea.net. Again, as always, we will keep the membership informed of our progress step by step. Remember, Ben Franklin stated, “We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.” This is truly a time for EVERYONE to stand together.