NTA eBulletin: October 25, 2026

Dear Colleagues.

This eBulletin includes a Negotiations Update from Ryan Normandin, Second Release Officer and Chair of the NTA Negotiations Committee. In these introductory remarks, I want to address the larger purpose and trajectory of negotiations as well as questions about building a negotiations “campaign.”

Negotiations I: Why Is It That Just When They Come to an End, They Begin Again?

The simple answer to this question is: It’s the law. 

By Massachusetts law, public educators can only negotiate collective bargaining agreements–“contracts”–to last for three years. When a contract “expires” at the end of the three-year period, the terms and conditions remain in place, unmodified–including salary schedules with step increases and lane changes; health insurance and other benefits, including leave policies; and protections of working conditions–but salary schedules become fixed. At the very least, Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) for the subsequent three years need to be bargained anew.

But in Newton, it’s more complicated than that.

Here, bargaining each three-year contract comes with the added consternation of knowing we have never settled a new contract before the current contract expires. So after our three-year contract has expired, we bargain a one-year retroactive "bridge" contract and a three-year contract. Effectively, instead of spending one year out of every three bargaining a new contract, in Newton we spend two years out of every four bargaining a one year and a three-year contract. We end up in bargaining and campaign mode half the time! 

This was further exacerbated during the last round of negotiations by the extreme measures the Newton School Committee, mayor, and central administration took: they failed to bargain in good faith, tried to force negotiations to an impasse in order to impose their “last, best offer, and conducted a misleading public relations campaign. 

In the fall of 2023, Chris Walsh and I visited every building, and I can assure you that no one wanted to go on strike. Members decided to go on strike because it was clear that, if they didn’t, they would suffer a crippling defeat that would have harmed not only the NTA, but would have caused long-lasting harm to the Newton Public Schools. 

When you recall your time on the picket line, it’s easy to remember the few people who reacted negatively. But try to remember the vast majority of residents of Newton who supported us in small and large ways: they knew we were fighting to save their–and our–schools! We can remember that, know that, and still agree that we do not want to end up in that bind again! 

Even under normal circumstances, the cycle of negotiating every three years would be exhausting. It’s pretty hard not to experience this cycle without thinking, and saying:  “Here we go again!" In Newton, this is complicated by our history of bargaining two years out of every four, and, more recently, by the traumatic year of COVID, and then the strike. Clearly, we need these negotiations to go differently.

All well and good to acknowledge how hard it is to enter bargaining and campaign mode once again. But we still have to do it. As I said earlier, if for no other reason, because it’s the law. 

So I am going to ask you to take another perspective: Every three years, we once again have the opportunity to collectively make our voices heard. 

Between negotiating contracts, sure, we have opportunities to make our voices heard, but most often we find ourselves at the receiving end of top-down initiatives. Rarely do I hear any educator say of these top-down changes: “Yes, these are exactly the changes I think that the Newton Public Schools needs to improve the working conditions of educators and the educational experience of students.”

On the contrary, over the last two years, the pace of change has been furious and its purpose nebulous. Initiatives have been introduced at the same time as budget squeezes and budget freezes. “Do more, do it now, and do it with less!" That’s the message.

Even when you see the value and importance of the changes, the implementation is experienced as calamitous. This, despite the exhausting efforts of Unit B members, who stretch themselves beyond their limits to make initiatives work as well as possible and to minimize harm for their colleagues in Units A and C. 

At convocation this year we were treated to an “inspirational” speaker who extolled the virtues of building relationships with students, and then Dr. Nolin treated us to a barrage of AI-generated slides with ill-defined and scattershot statistics purportedly showing how much the data-driven approach she is championing is improving “outcomes” for students. 

What I saw in her presentation was an intolerable casualness and sloppiness in the use and presentation of data. If her point was to give reasons to believe that the rollercoaster of initiatives we have been on since her arrival has been worth the effort, that presentation achieved the opposite effect. The issue is not simply that the presentation was sloppy. It is that educators are being asked to accept sweeping changes on the basis of evidence they have little opportunity to evaluator or challenge.

Between contracts, whether the changes are good or bad, we mostly experience them reactively, as something that happens to us, neither of our making, nor on our nor our students' behalf.

Yet, every three years, we have, as it were, the opportunity to take the initiative, to think creatively. How do we put forward proposals that articulate what we think we need to do our jobs most effectively?  

For this reason, bargaining a “new” contract is not just about bargaining for new COLAs for the next three years. Yes, that is critically important–and through our bargaining surveys and focus groups, you have expressed your clear priorities are realistic COLAs and the protection of your health insurance benefits. 

We need change that begins with this acknowledgement: “We know you are overwhelmed, and we know that the growth in your students’ needs outpaces your ability to meet those needs. We know that we, as a school community, need to do more to build those supports that make your jobs more manageable. We need to refrain from initiatives that make your jobs less manageable. Because you are the professionals, we know that supporting you, listening to you, is what is most important to improve our students' learning experiences.” 

In my role, what I have learned there are many changes most of you view as critical, even necessary. 

• Student mental health and behavioral needs are growing, and the structures we currently have in place do not adequately address those needs. You need adequate school-based resources to support the behavioral, social/emotional, and mental health needs of your students, whether they are general education or special needs students. 

• Leave policies that recognize you as individuals and as family members who must care not only for your students, but yourselves and your loved ones.

• Enough highly qualified daily substitutes so that if you must miss school, you know your students' needs will be well met in your absence and your colleagues will not be left to triage your absence without the staffing they need to do so effectively.

We must take the initiative and propose changes that we know will make our schools and our students more resilient, so that they can genuinely thrive and we can recover the joy that comes from being a part of making this happen. We are excited to share our full proposal with you when it is finalized.

Negotiations II: Why Are We “Campaigning” Already?

The simple answer to this question is: It’s how we build solidarity.

The “we” of the NTA does not just happen: We must build it. And we must rebuild it for each contract we negotiate. 

Your negotiations team needs this. When they sit at the table and bargain with the school committee and superintendent, they bring with them the knowledge that they represent the membership of the NTA. They see this when they sit in a staff meeting and everyone around them is wearing a blue t-shirt. The community sees this when we post pictures of you wearing your blue t-shirts on social media. The visible participation of members gives the negotiations team both confidence and bargaining power. 

But in Newton, it is more complicated than that.

In my sixteen years as your president, I must tell you that I have still not figured out why bargaining is so hard here. Of course, I ask myself: Is it me? Is there something confrontational in my leadership style that provokes conflict and drawn-out contract campaigns? 

Maybe. What I know is that the pattern of overextended contract negotiations did not begin with me. Nor did the campaigning. And there were periods of time, during Setti Warren’s Mayorality, when things did go more smoothly and collaboratively. 

Yet it is my abiding experience that we have never been “given” anything; that each time we come to the table, the school committee asks more of us and offers us less. There is an abiding belief on their part that the members of the NTA must sacrifice for the schools. The ‘asks’ have been constant: In 2011, give backs on health insurance, near zero COLAs and delayed step increases; in 2014 (after a successful operational override), give backs in health insurance and near zero COLAs; in 2018, the  the treatment of 3% COLAs as outrageous; in 2020, COVID negotiations in which the school committee rejected safety protocols because “schools were [already] safe"; in 2022, give backs in health insurance, near zero COLAs and the elimination of the Time and Learning Agreements. 

I am happy to be the scapegoat if that is what is needed. But the reality is that we have had to fight for every contract we bargained for. In 2011, 2014, 2018, 2020, 2022, negotiations at the table would have failed without the campaign members waged. These contracts were not given to us; we won them. And make no mistake: our contracts–all five of them–are significantly better than they were in 2010, at the tail end of the financial crisis.

There is a fundamental disparity in power and interests between the mayor, the school committee, the NPS central administration and the members of the Newton Teachers Association. I wish this were not true, but I have not seen evidence to the contrary. Each time I have heard a call to put down our swords and forge them into plowshares, the fields that the district wishes to plow have been us. Mind you: I prefer the plowshare to the sword. But we cannot allow the membership of the NTA to be plowed under. 

In order to win the contracts we have, we have had to build our power, build campaigns, bargain from a position in which we know our membership is one with us in solidarity. 

But a strong campaign is not necessarily a confrontational campaign.We do not build or wield power for the sake of building or wielding power. We know our schools. We know our students. We know what they need, and we know what we need to serve them.

Negotiations Update

Ryan Normandin, Second Release Office and Chair, Negotiations

Since September, your negotiations team has been hard at work preparing for this year’s contract negotiations. (Our current contract expires August 31, 2027.)

That has taken two primary forms:

1)    Negotiating the ground rules with the school committee: Ground rules are the rules that govern the negotiations themselves. Where will we meet? How many silent negotiators is each side allowed? How late into the process can new proposals be introduced?

If the two parties cannot reach agreement on a proposed ground rule, there is simply no ground rule governing that item. Thus far, we’ve been pleased to work productively with the school committee’s negotiations subcommittee, and have reached tentative agreements on nearly all of each side’s proposals. Once we wrap up, we’ll share the full set of ground rules with our members.

2)    Preparing our platform: Thanks to everyone who completed the bargaining survey or participated in focus groups, we’ve been able to craft a platform that reflects the priorities of our members. We’re still working through each proposal (there are a lot!) with the team, and look forward to presenting our platform to you when we finish up, hopefully by early November.

You can sign up to be a Silent Negotiator at our meeting this Monday, October 26 from 4:15 to 6:30 p.m. at the NTA Office (29 Crafts St., Suite 470). You can find all meetings and sign-up links posted on our website, newteach.org.

Our negotiations team is feeling great heading into this cycle. The team is a wonderful cross-section of units, roles, and levels. They’re open-minded, thoughtful, and unafraid of the healthy disagreement and debate that makes all of our proposals stronger. Most of all, we are laser-focused on settling a strong contract before our current agreement expires next year.

GLP-1 Negotiations

We continue to attempt to negotiate with the City of Newton and the Newton Public Schools regarding their removal of GLP-1 for weight loss from the list ("formulary") of medications covered by BCBS insurance.

Here is where we stand, and our dilemma. Removing GLP-1 medications from the list of covered medications reduced by 7.4% the amount that insurance premiums went up for this plan year (July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027). Bargaining to have them once again on the formulary would raise premiums by that much, both for us, as members, and for the Newton Public Schools, as our employer. 

Our initial proposal was to have the City of Newton finance a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) to cover the cost of GLP-1 medications for weight loss. This would cost the City of Newton and the Newton Public Schools a fraction of what it would cost to keep GLP-1 medications on the formulary, because the pharmaceutical companies charge individuals far less for medications than they charge insurance. 

However, the pharmaceutical companies do not allow patients who purchase the medications at a reduced price cost to submit their expenses for reimbursement. 

(For perspective, the "reduced prices" the two major pharmaceutical companies selling GLP-1 medications charge range from $350 to $450 per month; they charge insurance companies over $1,000 per month.)

We have since learned that these companies may offer employer purchasing plans that allow the employer to directly subsidize the cost of the medications. We have proposed that the City of Newton and Newton Public Schools participate in one of these plans and offer the medications to members at a much reduced, subsidized price.

It is clear that the path forward entails some form of cost sharing that allows our members, the City of Newton, and the NPS to benefit from reduced pricing.

To be continued....

Thrive

I do not receive positive feedback about Thrive. I do, however, receive a good amount of "interesting" feedback.

One member wrote to me to share their concern about how many of the presenters at Thrive work for private companies selling or hoping to sell products to NTA members or to the NPS. 

Here are some of the companies who are sending presenters:

• Lifetime Fitness

• Kami

• School Success--EdPuzzle

• Snorki

• Amplify

• LearningWorks

• Renaissance (more than one session)

• True Robotics

I did a deeper dive (using AI and Google) on just one of these companies: Lifetime Fitness. 

Lifetime Fitness is a publicly traded company that offers a sort of "Country Club" gym membership experience. They have a branch in Chestnut Hill. Individual "basic" membership is $299 per month. (For comparison purposes, an individual monthly membership at the West Suburban YMCA ranges from $24.50 to $75, depending on the member's age. They offer a 25% discount to municipal employees of Newton, Watertown, Wellesley, Weston, and Belmont.)

Lifetime Fitness was founded in 1994, went public in 2004, was taken over by private equity in 2015, then went public again in 2021. Since it was acquired by private equity, it has been, quite effectively, milked by its investors. 

The private equity firms that acquired it--Leonard Green and Partners and TPG--invest in companies that historically employ low wage employees--retail (Whole Foods, Petco, J. Crew, the Container Store), healthcare (CHG Healthcare) restaurant (Burger King, Shake Shack), leisure and travel (Airbnb, Continental Airlines, Uber)

I mean by this no criticism of the substance of the workshop offered: "Fiber: The Missing Piece of SEL [The Surprising Connection between Fiber, Brain Health and Social Emotional Learning]," nor of the speaker, Sarah Moller.

But I do mean to ask whether Newton's public funds should be used to subsidize private equity investments, in this case in particular, investments in a company whose services no one working in the Newton Public Schools could possibly afford?

NSK12 Review of Special Education Programs

I asked those of you who were selected to participate in focus groups with the consultant NSK12 to decline the invitation. Since then, the district has put the focus groups on hold as we work together to figure out how member input can meaningfully inform recommendations and decisions.  

We are glad the district made this choice. We in the NTA are working with our members to learn more about the process and how we can meaningfully contribute. 

Since two weeks ago, I sent the follow proposal to Assistant Superintendent Casey Ngo-Miller suggesting how the NTA could work collaboratively with the the district and its consultant:

"....I propose that you [Ms. Ngo-Miller] direct NSK12 to approach the NTA. We can work with them. We may need to refine the questions they ask in focus groups or refine their Time Insights Study. However, the main point of difference [from the NPS current plan to work with NSK12] that would allow us to move forward is that NSK12 must share all gathered results exclusively with the NTA, which will then use this data to refine its proposals for addressing special education staffing. And of course we will share the data-based rationale for our proposals with you."

I have not yet heard back regarding this proposal.

As a district, we need to be more thoughtful about how we provide services to special education students, and work to implement models that provide students with the support they need without creating dependency on adults. 

AND we must be very careful to not conflate this worthy goal with addressing budgetary shortfalls. I am concerned that the primary purpose of NSK12's recommendations will be to restrict the student services budget, with these recommendations couched in the language of reducing dependency. 

I know all educators are challenged with the increasing number and complexity of our students' needs. And I know we often feel we do not have the resources to meet those needs.

The needs are real; the lack of resources is real; caution is necessary. Our students need us to support them. Our members need their union to support them. And our special education programs must continue to be a source of great pride. 

******

In solidarity,

Mike Zilles, President

Newton Teachers Association