Board, SEA sign final contracts
By Susan Biro, editor
New contracts, retroactive to July 1, 1989, were signed by Smyrna School Board President Michael McGrath and Smyrna Educators’ Association President Paulette Arnold at the board’s February meeting last Wednesday. The final signatures marked the end of a negotiating process which began in March 1988 for new contracts for Smyrna teachers, aides, secretaries and custodians....
McGrath said the board felt the new contracts put Smyrna in a more competitive position with nearby districts. The average teacher salary is $30,160, the average custodial salary is now $17,230, and the average secretarial salary is now $21,172....
The contracts expire June 30 of this year. The board and SEA are required by law to being talks on new contracts 90 days before the old one expires, and the first session took place the day after the board’s meeting last week.
What is different about this round of talks at the bargaining table is that neither the board nor the SEA will have a professional negotiator on their team.
Professional negotiators were a sore point for both sides during the nearly two years of talks and both agreed not to use them this time....
Katherine Bailey meets Prince Charles
Smyrna resident Katherine Bailey got a little more than she bargained for when she took a recent vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, because a day trip to Charleston got her a handshake with Britain’s Prince Charles.
The Prince of Wales was in Charleston Feb. 20 and it was that day that Bailey, along with Mary and Ed Everhart, took a day’s drive to Charleston. They didn’t know Prince Charles was expected that day.
He was in South Carolina for a conference entitled “Stakeholders: The Challenge in a Global Market” which was sponsored by the London-based organization Business in the Community. The prince is president of the group.
Bailey said she joined several hundred people waiting outside the Exchange Building hoping to at least see Prince Charles when the meeting was over.
“He was greeted by lots of applause when he came out,” said Bailey. “To our surprise he walked past his limo and toward the crowd of well-wishers to shake hands with a few people.”
Bailey got one of those handshakes.
“I was one of the lucky ones. And you know, he is much better looking than his pictures,” said Bailey.
David Williams wins gold medal, looks to spring track
