School board negotiator Rich Girard responds to teacher rally

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Girard smMANCHESTER, NH  – As Manchester teachers prepared to rally this evening prior to the  7 p.m. meeting of the city Board of School Committee (BOSC), Board member Rich Girard, the chair of the Special Committee on Negotiations for the Manchester Board of Schools Committee, gave the following response to the statements by  Manchester Education Association (MEA) president Sue Hannon:

“We don’t see how the MEA declaration of impasse and staging pickets is going to facilitate getting a contract sooner than later. We encourage them to return to the table and resume what we believed had been productive talks on a variety of issues.’

“When they declared impasse, they said we’re not talking to you anymore. Anything we had in the works – sick time, health insurance, aspects of salary – that came to a screeching halt. We have no mechanism to construct proposals. The board will focus on other things we need to do to administer the district. There’s no point in finishing proposals that were in the works because our counterparts have walked away from the table.”

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