NTA EBulletin: August 22, 2025

Click on the image above to go the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation

Hello All,

Welcome back to a new school year. We've been busy in the NTA all summer. Our summer organizers--Jayme Ellis, Brenna Green, Isaiah Davidson-Weiss--along with Vice President Elizabeth Ross DelPorto and Release Officer Ryan Normandin, have done extensive strategic planning and community outreach this summer. 

One of their projects was to create a timeline and compile documents and images of the Newton Teachers Association strike of 2024 for the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation's upcoming exhibit "When Waltham Strikes." The museum invited the NTA to participate in order to bring the history of regional strikes up to the present.

Anna Nolin has asked you to wear your school spirit wear or school colors. We were going to ask you to wear your blue t-shirts, but we certainly don't want to put you in a position where you have to choose loyalties. Rather, please wear your NTA blue caps--or, if you don't have one, any blue hat or headwear you may have. Let's arrive to opening day celebrating our schools AND our union!

We will be convening our bargaining team early this fall to begin preparing for bargaining our next contract. We would like to settle our contract before our current contract expires. We have reason to hope that the current School Committee would like to do the same.

We want to make sure that our communication with membership is both robust and easily accessible. To that end, would you please complete this (very short!) communications survey that our summer organizers created. 

Kindergarten Aides Arbitration Update

Finally, yesterday, August 21, the Middlesex Superior Court held a hearing to address the Newton School Committee's appeal of the arbitrator's ruling on kindergarten aides, which, as you know, was in our favor.

I was present. The judge came well prepared: she had clearly read and digested most of the documents relevant to the case. Our MTA attorney, Laurie Houle, did a fantastic job.

That said, the judge could give no specific date by which she would issue her ruling, so we start another school year, once again, without kindergarten aides.

Here is a timeline of the process to date:

• The Newton School Committee informed us, on March 16, 2023, that they would not be staffing each kindergarten with a full time aide for the 2023-2024 school year;

• we filed a step 2 grievance with the HR Director on March 28, 2023;

• after the NPS HR office rejected the grievance, we filed a step 3 grievance on April 12, 2023 with the Newton School;

• the Committee rejected this grievance on May 11, 2023;

• we filed for arbitration on May 22, 2023;

• the district did not staff kindergarten classrooms with a full time kindergarten aide for the 2023-2024 school year;

• the arbitrator heard our case on October 19, 2023;

• the arbitrator ruled in our favor in April, 2024;

• the school committee filed an appeal in May 2024

• the district did not staff kindergarten classrooms with a full time kindergarten aide for the 2024-2025 school year;

• Middlesex Superior Court heard the lawyer's pleadings yesterday, August 21, 2025.

Draw your own conclusions, but in my opinion, justice delayed is justice denied for the teachers and students who were in kindergarten classrooms without a full time aide for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years.

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I will send out the next EBulletin on September 7. In it, I will include:

• an analysis of the survey results from last spring; 

• a review of member protections in case of an on the job injury;

• a review of our sick leave benefits under the contract, and our continuing concerns about denial of benefits

  
  

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Last spring I included this in an EBulletin, which I am sure is relevant to many of you now.

Compensation for Involuntary Classroom Moves

Many of you have had to move classrooms this year. The Unit A contract compensates members who are told they have to move their classroom one half of one workshop day...this year, $163.

Here is the language from the Unit A contract, Article 21, Section 2: 

Involuntary Class Move: If a Principal has requested and approved the move of an entire classroom, a classroom teacher will receive a payment equal to 50% of a Professional Development Day, representative of their time spent packing and moving, if the move takes place during unscheduled work hours. 

Here is a link to the form you must complete to receive this payment. 

In solidarity, 

Mike Zilles, President

Newton Teachers Association