Teacher's Contract and Bancroft on the Agenda for Special BOE Meeting

The will hold a special joint meeting tonight with the borough Board of Commissioners, and are also scheduled to vote on a contract ratified by the teacher's union last week. The meeting will be at 7:00 p.m. in the all-purpose room.

School board President Steve Weinstein declined to offer details about either the terms of the contract or the board's current proposal for a public purchase of the Bancroft property on Kings Highway East.

"We're going to discuss it at the board meeting," Weinstein said Friday. "We were waiting for the HEA (Haddonfield Education Association) to take its action. There's no document we can release until we circulate it and deal with our board. So when we get to the meeting we will discuss it, and that's the proper procedure."

Officials from the Haddonfield Education Association, which represents over 200 school board employees, including teachers, also declined to discuss the details of the contract.

"It's one of those endings where neither side came away happy, but both were able to walk away and say 'we did our best,'" Sharon Stokes, a co-president of the HEA said last week. "We put together a contract that is in line with what other districts negotiated."

Stokes said the agreement will run through 2014 and is retroactive to the end of the previous contract in June 2010 . The HEA has worked under the terms of the previous contract for the past 19 months. Teachers had been frustration by the pace of negotiations. It led to the between teachers and parents last fall. Teachers previously said they hoped to reschedule it when the contract is resolved.

The other major part of the agenda deals with the school board plan to purchase the 18.7-acre Bancroft property adjacent to the high school on Kings Highway East.

Borough commissioners have expressed concerns about a $24 million school-board plan to purchase the Bancroft property. Initial cost include $17.6 million for acquisition and demolition at Bancroft and the installation of two, turf athletic fields. Another $8 million would be needed for additional campus improvements and an interactive learning center.

The borough rolled out a cost estimate for a public purchase in September. It listed a $19.52 million total cost, with $14.27 million to be financed. It also estimated $5.25 million in state and county open-space grants and money from a local open-space tax fund.

The three borough commissioners are the highest elected, local officials. They will ultimately decide on a redevelopment plan for the property, which has been occupied for the past 128 years by Bancroft, a center for people with developmental disabilities and acquired brain injuries. Bancroft officials have been exploring selling the property and relocated for the past decade.

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