Garden City High School News

By Sara Hayes News

If you drive past the Garden City schools in the morning, you will see the teachers gathering outside. Currently at the Garden City schools, teachers are working without a contract. For this week's column I interviewed the president of the Garden City Teachers' Association, Carlo Rebolini; he is one of 350 members.

Mr. Rebolini says that the union differs with the BOE over "retaining greater control on the teacher school day." When I asked him about the process now that the contract has expired he said "We began negotiations in March 2006 before the contract expired. Upon the contract expiring, we continued to negotiate. We are now seeking the assistance of a mutually agreed upon mediator. ."

The teachers are doing many things to make people aware of the situation; they are "walking with signs, going to board meetings and at some point if the contract remains unsettled we'll expand our demonstrations to the central administration building."

He said he wants the community to know "we remain committed to our students and their needs. Our greatest desire is to be able to focus on our teaching without the stress of an unsettled contract. We remain hopeful that we can come to a resolution."

Every three or four years a contract is negotiated. Unfortunately this year, some difficulty has arisen in negotiations. I think everyone remains hopeful that these issues will be settled soon.