AMHERST — A union representing administrators in the Amherst and Pelham public schools and the Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract that will extend through the 2024-2025 school year.

A joint press release issued Friday by the school committee and the Amherst-Pelham Administrators Association, states that a deal is pending ratification later this month by the union membership and the school committee. The union includes assistant principals, the athletic director and food services supervisor and student services administrators for areas such as special education, multilingual education and curriculum, instruction and assessment.

“We have enormous appreciation for the work of our administrators who play invaluable and sometimes overlooked roles in the support and education of our students, and we are grateful for the collaborative effort with APAA that made this agreement possible,” Regional School Committee Chairman Ben Herrington said in a statement.

The agreement comes as negotiations are continuing between the school committee and the Amherst-Pelham Education Association, representing teachers, paraeducators and clerical staff.

“The Administrators Union hopes that this agreement can support the School Committee in reaching an agreement with other organizations that may help all parties feel hope for the future,” said APAA President Allison Estes. Estes, the assistant principal at Wildwood Elementary School, will become that school’s principal in July.

Peter Demling, an Amherst representative to the Regional School Committee, said the tentative vote on approving the agreement will be at its April 25 meeting. The full contract will be made public at that time.

Meanwhile, the school committee and teachers union return to in-person talks at the middle school on Tuesday. Late last month, a straw poll was taken at a union membership meeting in which members voted overwhelmingly to reject the latest offer of a 2.75% cost-of-living pay increase over the course of three years, and asked that negotiations continue.

The APEA bargaining team acknowledged some of the recent gains in the bargaining process, such as the school committee dropping the proposal to add two more working days to the calendar, and agreeing to some differential pay for specialized roles.

“We are looking forward to getting a fair contract resolved,” said Mangala Jagadeesh, Unit A Elementary co-chairwoman. “We continue to advocate for our educators and our students.”

Allison McDonald, who is one of the committee members negotiating, said that in addition to the 2.75% cost-of-living offer, the committee has added multiple increases for paraeducators, including an additional 3.5% increase for those at the top of the pay scale, and a significant reclassification of clerical staff that offers an additional 5% to 10% increase for the lowest paid clerical staff.

McDonald said the offer is higher than some contracts in the state recently settled for the same timespan, including South Hadley, Belmont, Duxbury, Rockland, Sudbury and Swansea, and is in the same ballpark of others, including Northampton.

“The fact is that our districts already offer compensation packages that are among the strongest in our area, and that will remain competitive under our proposal,” McDonald said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.]]>