You know that feeling you get when someone picks a fight with you over some little issue and you wonder “what’s this really about?” That’s the feeling I get trying to figure out what’s going on with the Nashua Board of Education negotiations with the Nashua Teacher’s Union.

For over a decade, the Board and the Union had an agreement on the pay and benefits for the union’s president. The president was paid by the district, and was reimbursed by the union – the cost to taxpayers was zero. The president also retained his or her pension and health care benefits, which are administered by the state, not the city.

This system seemed to work, but the negotiation team for the BOE has proposed a new system, one which would deny benefits and pension eligibility to the union president. Unsurprisingly, the union refused to agree to this.

So, now, as I understand it, this one issue is the only thing holding up negotiations. The teacher’s union has agreed to everything else in the contract, except this one item. And yet, the BOE team refuses to retract their proposed change.

Since the president’s pay doesn’t come out of taxpayer money, one is left to wonder “what’s this really about?” It looks like an attempt to make the union president’s job unattractive to new candidates, and therefore weaken the union. If there’s another explanation, I’d love to hear it.

Nashua has a difficult time attracting teachers, and has a critical shortage of substitutes and para professionals. Covid protocols need to be researched and agreed to. Curriculum needs to be reviewed. Special need programs need to be addressed. Yet, the board is spending its energy fighting over how the union president’s salary gets administered.

I’m left shaking my head and wondering what it’s really about. It’s time for the Board of Education to come to an agreement with the Nashua Teacher’s Union and do what the citizens elected them to do – make sure our students have the best education possible.