Medford Schools, Teachers Finalize New Contract

MEDFORD, MA — A lengthy contract fight in Medford between Medford School Committee and Medford Teachers Association negotiators came to a close this week with votes by the committee and the teachers association respectively.

The Medford Teachers Association announced Monday that it had ratified a prior tentative contract agreement.

The School Committee followed at a meeting later Monday night, with officials announcing they had also approved the deal.

Medford Public Schools Superintendent Marice Edouard-Vincent said she was “pleased” to have reached a finalized agreement.

The Medford Teachers Association said in a separate statement that it is proud of what it described as a “very strong contract.”

After more than a year of negotiations, though, celebration quickly turned to discussion of work ahead this week following a stabbing incident at Medford High School on Monday.

“We want our teachers to be safe,” Medford Teachers Association President Charlene Douglas told the School Committee Monday night. “We want our students to be safe.”

The stabbing took place on Monday morning, sending one student to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and landing another in police custody.

Medford High School students and staff spent roughly three hours under a shelter-in-place order, according to police.

READ: Medford Police Promise Visible Presence At High School After Stabbing

Medford Teachers Association members had been scheduled to vote on their contract at Medford High School later in the day. Due to events, the vote moved to the McGlynn Middle School, where union members green-lit the contract, according to a Massachusetts Teachers Association spokesperson.

The negotiation process to date had seen its share of ups and downs since Medford’s previous contract with its educators expired in August of 2021. Parties reached a tentative agreement in October. But the agreement then failed to get sufficient votes from rank-and-file teachers association members to pass, sending teams back to the bargaining table to iron out lingering contract concerns.

The teachers association earlier this month delivered a vote of no confidence in both Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn and the Medford School Committee as the contract dispute continued.

At issue, according to the Medford Teachers Association, were concerns about school safety, staffing levels and educator pay, among other things.

Just over two weeks after their no confidence vote, the teachers association moved forward this week, ratifying its new contract.

The contract will run retroactively from the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year through the 2024-2025 school year, according to Medford Assistant Superintendent David Murphy.

Speaking to the School Committee on Monday, Murphy said the finalized deal includes a “competitive but sustainable wage increase” while largely following the “substantive provisions” of the tentative agreement reached in negotiations in October.

Contract discussions on Monday came on either side of lengthy a public comment period regarding school safety in Medford schools.

After a day of anxiety and frustration following this week’s stabbing, many in the school committee criticized school district leadership for what they described as a pattern of decisions that have led to frequent violence incidents in schools.

Having butted heads through contract negotiations, meanwhile, union representatives and Medford school administrators together discussed a need to collaborate on new school safety improvements.

“We don’t need to be at odds,” Douglas said. “We need to work together.”

“There’s a mutual understanding that in order to maximize the impact in a positive way for students, there will need to be improved and more constructive discourse,” Murphy said of the new contract and upcoming work.

“That is the feeling of school administration and we’re certainly looking forward to doing our part to set a more positive and constructive tone,” he continued.