By: Dan Sokil

The first negotiation session since Tuesday's strike began in the Souderton Area School District is scheduled for today.

A district press release Thursday afternoon announced that the session will begin at 11 a.m. at an "undisclosed location."

Representatives of the district and the Souderton Area Education Association (SAEA) will both be present, along with state mediator Jill Leeds Rivera.

Disagreements on teacher salary, health benefits and working conditions are among the issues.

"When we returned to the bargaining table on Labor Day, we brought with us a revised salary proposal and made an attempt at compromise. We hope the teachers union will do the same when we meet tomorrow," Jeffrey Sultanik, the school board's head negotiator, said Thursday.

Sultanik also rebutted rumors that members of the SAEA have lost or will lose their health insurance coverage during the current work stoppage.

"We had to, under the terms of our Green, Red and Blue plans, terminate coverage for individuals who are not actively employed with the school district, and when they're on strike, our position is that they're not actively employed," Sultanik said.

However, Sultanik said he has been in contact with representatives for the union and both have agreed that if somebody in a self-insured program has an insurance claim, they'll be reimbursed by their carrier within the 60-day COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) period for any expenses they may have.

"Even though the insurance plan has technically been terminated, number one, nobody in the teachers union is going to get hurt and not have insurance coverage availability during the work stoppage, and number two, I think the problem is that the union did not completely explain this possibility to their members," Sultanik said.

A letter from AmeriHealth, the district's insurance provider, will explain the details to each employee, but rumors about a health insurance cutoff are "much ado about nothing," Sultanik said.

SAEA head Bill Lukridge

agreed, calling the rumors a "non-issue."

"We have AmeriHealth, and everybody's covered as of today," Lukridge said Thursday.

"It's almost like a paper cutoff in coverage, because they all still have coverage; under federal law you can't cut off your reimbursement for health care without 60 days' notice, and that is not what happened here," Sultanik said.

Teachers union spokesman Rob Broderick said on Thursday that his group was examining and evaluating the details of the school board's action.

"Apparently there's been a big misunderstanding about the board's actions," Broderick said. "We're still trying to clarify exactly what happened and until we understand it ourselves, we can't really say what the ramifications are."

But the ramifications of another announcement Thursday should be immediately clear: the timeline for an end to the strike could be in sight, now that the state's Department of Education has designated Sept. 23 and Oct. 8 as "critical dates" for the strike resolution process.

Under Pennsylvania law the current strike by the SAEA must end by a date when 180 days of school instruction can still be offered to students by June 15.

That "critical date" has been calculated as Sept. 23 by the Department of Education, three weeks after the start of the strike on Sept. 2, according to a statement Thursday from the DoE's Office of Elementary/Secondary Education School Services Unit.

"I wish we could come back in sooner, and have a settlement sooner, but I haven't heard a thing; I've been out on the picket line all day," said Lukridge.

If no agreement has been reached by then, after Sept. 23 the school district and the SAEA will be required to enter an arbitration process before a three-person panel: one person nominated from each side of the dispute and one neutral arbitrator.

The panel will take contract offers from both sides within 10 days, and both parties' proposals would then be posted for a 10- day public comment period, during which hearings would be held to discuss the proposals.

According to Act 88, the panel is required to consider the following factors: "1) The public interest; 2) the interest and welfare of the employee organization (the union); 3) the financial capability of the school entity (district); 4) the results of negotiations between the parties prior to submission of the last best contract offers; 5) changes in the cost of living; 6) the existing terms and conditions of employment of the employee organization members and those of similar groups; and 7) such other documentation as the arbitration panel shall deem relevant."

Within 20 days of the panel's last hearing, they will issue a written determination to both parties.

Both the SAEA and the school district must either accept or reject that determination within 10 days; if both accept, the agreement becomes a binding contract, but if either rejects the recommendations, a second strike could occur that would have to end by Oct. 8 (the second critical date determined by the state DoE).

"It is our sincere hope that the SAEA does not deny our students an education until this critical date is reached. This would truly be tragic," said Sultanik.

Meanwhile, regarding the modified school schedule, although the district will have to make up instructional days lost to the strike, a district press release has confirmed that no classes will be scheduled for Saturdays or Sundays, or on any of the following days:

Nov. 27 or 28 (Thanksgiving), Dec. 24, 25 or 26 (Christmas), Jan. 1 or 2 (New Year's Day), May 25 (Memorial Day), April 10 or July 4.

The district is still providing transportation for the community's private schools, such as Grace Christian School in Telford, Penn View Christian, Christopher Dock High School and the Souderton Charter School, all of which are open as usual.