Talia Gallagher and Allison Hutchinson both are at very different points in their teaching careers.
On Thursday, however, they both had arrived at the same destination: A sidewalk outside the Newton school district’s administration building, where they — joined by scores of their colleagues — continued a historic strike that had dragged into its 10th day.
Gallagher, a high school history teacher with five years’ experience, and Hutchinson, a special education teacher with 15 years on the job, said they both wanted to be back in their classrooms, teaching children whose lives have been upended by a work stoppage that’s shuttered schools, driven parents to frantically juggle childcare schedules (and for some, to file lawsuits), and exposed policy and class fissures that may not be easily mended.
“This isn’t why I got into teaching,” Gallagher, a union representative who teaches world history, told MassLive. “I want to be with my students.”
Hutchinson, who has three kids in the district — a preschooler, a middle-schooler and high schooler — said she saw no easy way out of a work stoppage that comes in defiance of state law and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
“At what point do you say enough is enough?” she asked, not entirely rhetorically, as her fellow teachers, most wearing blue-and-white beanies identifying them as members of the Newton Teachers Association, marched, chanted, huddled against the cold, consoled, and cheered each other on.
What Happened?
The union voted to walk off the job last month as labor leaders and local officials struggled to get a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement that would address such issues as cost of living adjustments and the chronic underfunding that some on Thursday said has left the district without enough social workers and support staff to address a mental health crisis among students.
Newton’s strike is now the longest teacher work stoppage to happen in Massachusetts since the 1990s, according to The Boston Globe.
With an approved budget of more than $268 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year, and a median household income of $176,373, according to U.S. Census data, that far outpaces the national figure, the idea that Newton’s schools could be underfunded invites skepticism. Nonetheless, the district faced at least a $4.9 million budget hole for 2024.
Union leaders have pointed the finger of blame at Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, whom they say has kept the city’s share of support for the district at 3.5% of its municipal budget. School district officials have contended the city’s share needs to be closer to 5% to 6.5%, according to The Justice, Brandeis University’s student newspaper.
In an email, a district spokesperson told MassLive that the school committee and Newton’s school superintendent had negotiated with Fuller to “add $5 million to the school budget over the next [four] years.”
That “will bring the allocation to 5%. Additional funding added during this strike will bring the allocation for [fiscal 2025] to just over 5%,” the spokesperson, Julie McDonough, wrote.
Fuller, for her part, has said officials “can’t allocate what doesn’t exist and we can’t sign a contract on money you can’t count on,” according to WBZ-TV.
Gallagher said she’s seen the impact of those choices.
“If a student is in a mental health crisis, and needs a guidance counselor, and that counselor is busy helping another student, [they] may have to wait for help,” she said. “We don’t always have the resources for new textbooks. As an affluent district, that is the situation that we’re in.”
But later on Thursday, there appeared to have been some progress.
While pay remains an issue, the city’s school committee and the union did agree to a 60-day parental leave policy, with a fourth year added to the contract and increased paraprofessional compensation, the school committee’s chairperson, Chris Brezski, said during a news conference on Thursday afternoon, WCVB-TV in Boston reported.
The two sides also had apparently reached an accord on matters of class size and getting social workers into school buildings, the station reported.
Striking teachers in Newton, Mass., picket outside the district’s administration offices on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. The historic work stoppage, illegal under state law, was in its 10th day (MassLive photo by John L. Micek).John L. Micek
The Economics
Striking teachers who spoke to MassLive on Thursday stressed that they’re looking for a fair wage that will enable them to live in the community they serve — a reality that is increasingly remote, as it is across most of the Bay State, which is in the grips of an equally historic affordable housing crisis.
The district’s starting wage for a first-step teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $50,676, according to a salary schedule posted on the union’s website. That figure climbs to $62,984 for a first-step teacher with a master’s or PhD degree. Senior teachers with advanced degrees can earn as much as $109,910, documents showed. That still lags the city’s median household income.
A peek into the windows of two local real estate offices illustrate the challenge educators such as Gallagher, who said she’s now sweating making her rent after her wages run out, now face, if they want to both live and work in Newton.
Housing prices on some properties ran from a pricey $795,000 for one home to an eye-watering $3.7 million for another. The median home price in Newton in December was $1.3 million, a 6.1% jump compared to the year before, according to the real estate site RedFin.
Michael Foote, a behavioral therapist at Newton North High School who works with students on the autism spectrum, makes the two-hour commute from New Hampshire to get into work every day. And even that’s not cheap, Foote, a seven-year veteran of the district, who’s been in the education trade for a total of four decades, told MassLive.
“I have coworkers who are making less than $30,000 and you can’t get an apartment for less than $2,500 a month,” he said, adding later, “I’m predominantly conservative. I was never a big supporter of unions or striking. Now I understand why … people felt the need to unionize.”
The median rent in Newton — for all bedroom types — currently is $3,335 a month, according to the real estate site Zillow.
A yard sign in support of striking teachers in Newton, Mass. on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. The historic work stoppage, illegal under state law, was in its 10th day (MassLive photo by John L. Micek).John L. Micek
The Divide
While many here continue to support the teachers and their cause, fissures already are starting to show, with aggrieved parents and students appealing to a Middlesex County Superior Court judge, asking him to end the walkout, MassLive previously reported.
And the signs of the disruption brought on the strike are visible across this community of 86,545 people.
At mid-morning on Thursday, the city’s two, massive high school buildings, Newton North and Newton South, were all but deserted, save for a handful of cars in their parking lots. Along the city’s streets, blue yard signs, urging drivers to “support Newton educators for better schools,” popped up at regular intervals.
And the most telling sign: Kids who should have been in class were out on the sidewalks and in the cafés in the town’s center.
At the Starbucks on Centre Street, a table full of students who identified themselves as sixth graders told MassLive they were ready to return to class — as were their parents.
“We miss school,” one student said.
“Our parents are getting angry,” another volunteered.
Up the street, at Learning Express Toys & Gifts, a clerk told MassLive she’d twice had to roust sticky-fingered young people who’d tried to make off with merchandise on Thursday.
“The kids don’t have anything to do,” the clerk, Maddie Bennett, told MassLive, as she showed photos on her phone of the recovered merchandise.
Behind the counter, another clerk, Skyler Montgomery, a junior at Newton South High School, said she’d found the strike “a little frustrating” as she tried to prep for the ACT Exam and tried to manage a rapidly filling babysitting schedule brought on by parents searching for care.
“It’s tricky to organize my day now,” she said. “Now I have to make sure I have the right amount of time.”
Back at the district administration building, Foote, the veteran educator, stood and watched as his colleagues massed around him, a sea of blue caps that seemed to grow larger with the moment.
“It’s sad that this is where we are — especially in a community with the reputation for education that it has,” he said, then, added wryly, “Nothing worth having is cheap.”
