NJ Education Report

Okay. 115 of our 591 school district unions did agree to salary freezes, just like the Star-Ledger reported last evening. Problem is that only 9 of those 115 were actually unions composed of teachers; the rest were administrators’ unions, which involve far less people. (To be clear, PolitickerNJ is reporting that the current number of districts freezing teacher salaries is 9; The Record says it’s 16, but that includes unions that agreed to any sort of salary concession, not just freezes.)

One of those 9 is Boonton School District in Morris County where teachers agreed to a 9-month freeze. Fred Snowflack at The Daily Record asked union president Judy Sorochynskyj how she fended off leaders at NJEA who are adamant about resisting calls for salary concessions: “she said she did not know, because she was away last week and presumably in a place where she could not get feedback …But she said that the feedback from “the community” has been very positive. That’s to be expected, althought the Boonton union folk may not be greeted all that warmly at the next NJEA gathering.”

The Record quotes Christie’s spokesman, Michael Drewniak, who agrees that the failure of NJEA’s local units to agree to conceding salary increases for one year will result in lay-offs. Says Drewniak, “The younger teachers will lose their jobs. And most of us can agree that the leaders of the teachers union are senior teachers.”