NHFT Contract Negotiations: Beyond 2017-2018

By David Cicarella, NHFT President
The 2017-2018 contract extension is signed and sealed which gives us relative peace of mind through the 2017-2018 school year. Given the present political, financial, and economic situation and all of its uncertainty, this is clearly a very good thing. We are now preparing to formally negotiate a contract beyond 2017-2018.
The previous edition of the Advance contained a center spread with photos and professional information for all members of our NHFT Negotiations Team. The team is deliberately composed of teachers from various teaching assignments including elementary, high school, specialty areas, support staff, ESL, and special education.  The goal is to create a cross section in terms of years of teaching experience and ensure a diverse, balanced group that represents all of us at the negotiations table.
Contracting Working Group
On November 30, 2017, I sent a memo to inform everyone that in addition to our formal Negotiations Team, we have established a contract working group (***This memo was sent to all building stewards and was forwarded to you via the personal email you supplied to your steward). The “contract working group” has met three times and will continue meeting throughout the school year on a monthly basis. It is open to any teacher that would like to attend. The purpose is to allow input and discussion of any and all items that teachers would like to put forth in terms of proposals by the Negotiations Team. While everyone has access via electronic communications to members of our Negotiations Team, the working group allows for firsthand, in-depth discussion with other colleagues and various members of the Negotiations Team. At our January meeting, NHPS Chief Operating Officer (COO) Will Clark attended and engaged in frank, professional dialogue as to the process and perspectives from the NHPS BoE. Members of the working group did likewise. Will has committed to attend future meetings as his schedule permits. This is quite significant and was well received, as he is the lead negotiator for the NHPS.  Feel free to come to as many meetings as your schedule allows.

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