Teachers, board agree on pact
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
Cherry Hill Sun
1/11/2008

Contract details to be released after ratification, school officials say

Teachers and administrators alike let out a long-awaited sigh of relief last Thursday, as committees representing the Cherry Hill Township Board of Education and the Cherry Hill Education Association reached a tentative agreement on new contracts for teachers and support personnel in the district, according to a district press release.

Teachers and support personnel had been working in the school district without contracts since June 30 of 2007, after their previous three-year contracts had expired. The CHEA represented more than 900 teachers and 300 support personnel employees in the district during the contract disputes.

Despite working without contracts since June 30, teacher and support personnel employees never threatened to go on strike.

In a written press release on its Web site, the Cherry Hill School District announced the agreement on the same morning it was settled. The heads of the two parties will be working on salary guide details in the following weeks and will present the tentative agreement to their respective parties when the work is complete.

As per the agreement, neither Cherry Hill Board of Education President Anne Einhorne, Cherry Hill Superintendent David C. Campbell, nor CHEA President Martin Sharofsky would offer any comment on the agreement.

Details of the three-year contracts will be released to the public when the contracts are legally ratified, school officials said.

The contract dispute reached the third stage of negotiations, and a state-representative from Public Employees Relations Commission met with both the CHEA and the Cherry Hill BOE. Negotiations were concluded with the help of state-appointed fact finder Thomas Hartigan.

The district had its first fact-finding session on Nov. 12 at its regularly scheduled board of education meeting. The meeting lasted for five-and-a-half hours.

In a previous interview, Sharofsky said employee health benefits and salaries were the two main points of disagreement between the CHEA and Cherry Hill BOE.