YONKERS, NY – The Yonkers City Council unanimously approved new long-term labor agreements with the Yonkers Council of Administrators (YCA) and the Yonkers Federation of Teachers (YFT) on Tuesday.
The latter contract had been held up by the Council pending an agreement on the immediate implementation of an e-mail policy requiring teachers to respond to parent’s and administrator’s e-mails.
“This is an important victory for parents, which now requires teachers to answer their emails,” Council President Liam McLaughlin said. “This is a common sense improvement that will further the communication process between parents and teachers and encourage parental involvement in their children’s education. We appreciate both sides negotiating in good faith.”
In a bipartisan 6-1 vote last Tuesday, the City Council had held the YFT contract over in committee and asked Yonkers Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Edwin Quezada to continue discussions with the YFT and to try and reach agreement on the email issue.
“Many of our teachers already use e-mail to communicate regularly, and I applaud them for it,” Council President McLaughlin said. “I’d like to thank the Mayor, the Board of Education and particularly Dr. Quezada, Rev. Steve Lopez and the rest of the Trustees for all their hard work in negotiating this fair contract, and for working to resolve the issue over the e-mail policy, which was a top priority for both the PTA and this Council. We would additionally like thank the Yonkers Council of Administrators President Jane Wermuth for her cooperative nature and openness in dealing with the City Council.”
The new e-mail policy should take effect immediately and be online for the upcoming school year with efforts by the City’s Department of Information Technology, which now serves both the municipal government and the school district. “The 2014 inter municipal agreement between the City and the School District has proven useful and has given the Council more oversight into matters like this. In the end, it is our parents who are the real winners,” McLaughlin added.
Majority Leader John Larkin said, “This process has always been about one thing: our children’s education. As the father of four graduates of the Yonkers Public Schools, I know how important it is to maintain open lines of communication between parents and teachers. This is a policy that should have been in place a long time ago and I’m glad everyone stepped up to make it happen.”
Education Committee Chairman Mike Breen said, “Our children deserve nothing but the best. By bringing 21st century technology to the classroom, we will improve parental involvement above and beyond what is already taking place, such as phone calls and traditional face-to-face meetings. The extra time that was taken to resolve this matter has resulted in an even better contract agreement.”
Council member Dennis Shepherd said, “Technology is the way of the future. We see a lot of our students and parent and teacher organizations being innovative every day with things like social media, so it stands to reason that e-mail should also be a form of communication. We have an e-mail system that works, so let’s use it.”
Both contracts call for annual raises of around two percent between July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2021.
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