Board settles with sub teachers

Halton's public school board and its substitute teachers have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. Negotiators for the board and the Halton Elementary Occasional Teachers concluded months of bargaining with a settlement reached during talks held last Friday. The deal, details of which are not yet being made public, is a four-year pact retroactive to September 2004 and ending in September 2008. In a press release the board said it is "comparable to the terms of contracts reached with other Halton employee groups." The deal still has to be ratified by both sides. The board was expected to okay the agreement at a meeting Wednesday while the approximately 800 occasional teachers, members of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO), meet April 20 to vote on the new contract. "We are pleased to have come to a mutually beneficial agreement which will ultimately serve the needs of our elementary students," said Dawn Beckett-Morton, the board's executive director of human resources and its chief labour negotiator. Through a board-issued press release Al Bero, president of the Halton elementary occasional teachers, said, "We are very pleased with this deal and will be recommending it to our membership. Our board has certainly demonstrated some respect for our employee group." Just prior to the tentative deal Bero said that the Halton public board paid its occasional teachers $160.64 for a full day, a 2004 figure he said was the lowest in the province.