Oct 24, 2002 By April Straughters 2 min read

While not able to reach a tentative agreement at a marathon negotiation session Tuesday, representatives of the Brownsville Education Association (BEA) said they are hopeful a settlement is near as both sides return to the bargaining table today at 4 p.m. The BEA’s negotiation team met with the board of directors for six hours earlier this week concluding the session around midnight. Diana Michael, BEA spokesperson, said the meeting went “pretty well” and produced “positive movement.”

“We’re pretty hopeful. After what went on last night (Tuesday), we’re looking to settle this soon,” Michael said.

Director Stella Broadwater, chief negotiator for the district, declined comment on the meeting.

The 147 Brownsville Area teachers, who have worked without a contract for more than a year and the districts’ 2,200 students have been out of the classrooms for nine days. The BEA called a strike last week after negotiations that began January 2001 failed to produce an agreement. The main sticking points in the talks are health care, salaries and early-retirement incentives.

Tuesday’s meeting would have been the first time the two groups met at the bargaining table since the strike but the two groups unexpectedly met after a regular meeting last week that prompted the two groups to begin negotiating one on one without outside influence.

The two groups have agreed to take solicitor Matt Hoffman, who had been handling negotiations for the district, and Dan Shuman, Pennsylvania State Education Association representative and advisor to the BEA, out of the negotiation process and begin negotiating directly with one another.

That decision came after a number of residents, including John Ball, BEA’s chief negotiator, expressed opposition to having Hoffman negotiating on the district’s behalf. The district was paying Hoffman $85 per hour for handling negotiations an amount that had accumulated to $8,653.

Ball said he had dealt with Hoffman during negotiations and only recently found out that Broadwater was the district’s chief negotiator.

Carl Garofalo, president of BEA, said Shuman advised the BEA, but never actually negotiated on their behalf.

Garofalo said teachers haven’t walked out of the classrooms since 1986, during a time, he said, the district was undergoing a serious asbestos problem.

He said the first strike in the district occurred in 1976 and lasted three weeks.