Efforts by the Warwick School District to start the 2015-16 school year a week earlier fell through, according to a statement the district released to the media in January 2015. Without an agreement with the teachers union, the proposed calendar would start school on September 9 and end it on June 13.
The school board was scheduled to vote on the calendar at its January 20, 2015, meeting.
Why the date mattered
In 2015, Labor Day fell on September 7, the latest possible date for the holiday. Warwick officials had hoped to move the first day of school up to September 2, before Labor Day. But the district’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the Warwick Education Association (WEA) did not permit classes to begin before the holiday.
According to the district’s statement, “the administration approached the WEA leadership to proactively discuss an amendment to the CBA for the 2015/2016 school year only, by proposing starting school a week earlier in 2015-2016.”
“Being proactive, we looked at those concerns and we proposed to move the start date back to September 2 (before Labor Day),” Superintendent Dr. April Hershey said in the statement. “We approached the Association leadership to see if we could move the date back and have an MOU (memorandum of understanding) that addressed this issue.”
The district said Warwick was the only district in the area with contract language that prevented starting school before Labor Day. “No other district in the county has this type of language in their contract. As with all other CBA language, we must abide by it,” Hershey said.
The board’s disappointment
The district said the board and administration were told that WEA’s executive leadership had polled members and did not receive enough feedback to continue discussions or bring the question to a full membership vote.
“We are disappointed,” board president Dr. Timothy Quinn said in the statement. “We thought we were partners looking at the best for our students. We are very disappointed that the leadership decided not to discuss it with the full complement of teachers and/or take it to the full membership for a vote.”
The union responds
WEA president Lisa Hochreiter released a statement later that morning. She said the board had asked in October 2014 to move the start date to September 2, and that WEA leaders polled members to see whether they wanted to treat the request as an item of negotiation.
According to the union, the board said it was only interested in a yes or no response and would not negotiate the terms of the change. After the poll, WEA leaders determined that most members were not interested in pursuing the change without consideration of the union’s non-economic concerns, and they voted a second time not to take it to the full membership.
“Opening our mutually agreed upon Collective Bargaining Agreement in the middle of its duration to make changes solely at the request of the School Board, and for the benefit of one side only, is inappropriate and goes against the terms of a negotiated contract,” the statement said. The union said it would be happy to discuss the issue if the board was willing to negotiate.
A 32-year tradition
The WEA also pointed to history. Warwick had started school after Labor Day for more than 32 years, the union said, and in eight of those years Labor Day fell late without any change to the contract.
“Our students and their families have planned vacations, jobs, and college responsibilities of older siblings in accordance with our later start date, which has been seen as a valuable asset,” the statement said. The union noted that many county districts switched to pre-Labor Day starts after the severe winters of 1992 and 1996 caused numerous closures, but said the Warwick community had not indicated it preferred an earlier start.
Why start dates matter
Pennsylvania requires 180 days of instruction, so a later start pushes the last day of school deeper into June, especially if snow days must be made up. For families, the calendar affects summer jobs, vacations and child care, while for teachers it is a negotiated working condition.
This article was originally published in January 2015.