Contract negotiations resolved at Mars Area School District
ADAMS TWP — One decision made at Mars Area School District’s Wednesday board meeting was met with a resounding applause from a crowd of attendees that included members of the Mars Area Education Association and parents of the district’s students.
The school board voted 8-1 to approve a fact-finding report which effectively brought an end to the contract dispute between the district and teachers. The vote will also allow a new contract to be drawn.
John Kennedy, board president, voted against the report. Kennedy said his only issue with the report is its verdict on salary steps.
Hollie Meckler, president of the teachers’ union, said she cannot disclose details of the report until Thursday, Sept. 10.
Both sides had agreed to withhold details from the fact-finding agreement for a 10-day period.
Meckler said the report’s findings resembled the union’s original stipulations during early negotiations in 2025. Members of the union voted overwhelmingly in support of the report’s findings.
Differing stances between the district and the MAEA’s negotiating teams had included what annual salary increases, health insurance coverage and the length of the overall contract should look like.
Meckler said the conclusions drawn by Marc A. Winters, the third-party professional arbitrator charged with conducting the fact finding, also bridge the gap between compensating teachers fairly and fiscal responsibility for the school district.
“I feel like it was very fair for every party,” Meckler said.
Meckler, prior to the meeting, had said she was optimistic about the outcome of the vote, but that the union was prepared with a news release if the vote failed.
After the vote, she said, “I had to scrap what I had written already. But I appreciate that.”
She also voiced her disappointment that the negotiations took so long.
“I hope that, moving forward, we can understand each other a little better and work together a little bit better, to resolve other issues that are still outstanding,” Meckler said.
Anthony DePretis, board treasurer, said during the negotiation process, neither side set a good example for the district’s community and students on how adults should behave in a process of this sort. He said there were attempts to distort facts to achieve desired outcomes from members of both parties. He also said district budgets from previous years were used as reference for a present day contract, which he said was not good practice.
“Budgets are not static,” he said. “Today’s budget is not the same as the 2024 budget.”
DePretis said the negotiation process was not reflective of the critical thinking taught to students, instead being overly political.
“I hope, in our science classes, we’re not teaching our students to do stuff like that, because society’s gonna be in deep trouble if that's the direction we’re going in,” he said.
