Marblehead Teachers Strike: Schools, Sports Canceled Tuesday
MARBLEHEAD, MA — Marblehead Public Schools will be closed with all extracurricular activities — including athletics and any ensuing sports playoff games — will be canceled across the district for the duration of the teacher work stoppage after the Marblehead Education Association voted to strike Friday afternoon.
Superintendent John Robidoux said at Friday night’s School Committee meeting that the decision to announce that school is canceled on Tuesday — the first day that teachers are expected to be on the picket lines pending any agreement reached over the weekend — was to give parents and caregivers adequate notice to arrange for care.
He also said that — unlike in Beverly where teachers also voted to go on strike this week — all sports and extracurricular activities will be canceled for as long as the strike continues. The Marblehead High football playoff game against Norwood was played as scheduled on Friday night but the decision puts any ensuing playoff games at risk.
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“The closing of schools is the closing of schools and it includes athletics and extracurriculars because mainly all of what we do in the operation of the school is run through the (collective bargaining agreement),” Robidoux said, “so athletics, the sports, the coaches are part of the
collective bargaining agreement. So when there is a strike that collective bargain agreement is, in essence, not in place.”
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He said allowing some activities — football, for example — to continue while other activities are suspended could be a violation of equity rules and Title IX.
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“We need to focus solely on getting the teachers back in the classrooms as quickly as possible,” he said.
School Committee Chair Jennifer Schaeffner said Tuesday will become a professional development day — replacing the one scheduled for Jan. 31 — but that any other days the strike consumes will have to be made up either during vacations, Saturdays, or at the end of June.
“It’s an illegal act,” she said of both the Friday strike vote and the strike itself set to begin on Tuesday. “It’s an illegal strike. We were hopeful that we would be able to bargain in good faith without this. But we are here and we need to deal with it.”
The School Committee also voted to put on retainer a communications firm to help get messages out to the community and work with media during the work stoppage.
Schaeffner said the School Committee was set to have a hearing with the Department of Labor Relations Friday night and that the DLR may order state mediation and allow for bargaining to continue throughout the three-day weekend — the next scheduled bargaining session is not until Tuesday, pending state action.
“Maybe we can do this over the weekend and maybe by Tuesday we will be back and it won’t have to happen,” Schaeffner said.
MEA President Jonathan Heller said in a press statement late Friday afternoon — following what the MEA said was a 99 percent vote in favor of a strike — that Marblehead “schools are in crisis and that the educators of Marblehead have collectively said, Enough is enough.’
“After seven months of negotiations, we are no closer to a solution, and the School Committee has failed to recognize the urgency of the situation. Our schools need fair wages, safe working conditions, and adequate resources to meet the needs of our students.
“Because of their refusal to act, we must take action to protect the future of our community.”
The MEA announced their strike vote on social media shortly before 4 p.m. on Friday with School Committee members saying Friday night that they found out about the declaration through media reports.
School Committee member Sarah Fox said the School Committee was not officially notified of the strike until 5:59 p.m. — while it was in executive session and one minute before the scheduled open School Committee meeting.
“Our priority is and always has to be our students and the safety of our students,” she said of the decision to notify parents of the school cancellation on Tuesday ahead of that official response. “It is regrettable that the MEA did not even notify us (of the strike vote).”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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