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Show Teachers ready for negotiations By RichardJacobson In the coming weeks this newspaper will be reporting the negotiations between the Uintah School District Board of Education and teachers who work for that board. f As concerned parents you should 1 keep several concerns uppermost in 1 your minds. What can we do to attract I and keep quality teachers in our district? Are our school dollars being I spent in the most effective way to I assure that our students get the most benefit possible from school programs? The recent ratification of the Ogden School District to provide a cost of living increase along with several increased in-creased fringe benefits to its teachers is both a vote of confidence in the I teachers and a measure of their con- j cern for Ogden's school children. ! Where does the Uintah School District Board stand on these two concerns as they depart for a national convention to discuss such things? Three weeks ago the Uintah County Education Association presented to the board a list of negotiation items which included a cost of living increase on the base of the salary along with regular increments and improved fringe benefits. Negotiations with the Board will not begin until they return from the National School Boards Convention in the latter part of April. In the meantime mean-time the school budget will basically be planned except for salary considerations. con-siderations. At present the portion of the school budget committed to teachers salary and fringes lags considerably behind the state average. The teachers association calculates that an approximate ap-proximate increase of about one-half of one percent of their current expenditure ex-penditure budget will provide the needed money necessary for their request and provide for the hiring of from 7 to 8 additional new teachers to the district. This will require some reprioritizing of the budget as planned in other years, but we feel the quality of education in the classroom will be enhanced. |