A view of Wells River. Photo courtesy of Ascended Dreamer/Wikimedia Commons Negotiations over teachers’ salaries in the Blue Mountain Union School District have reached a rare inflection point while teachers start the school year without a contract. According to school board members, the le ngthy negotiations are the result of Vermont’s sweeping new education reform law, which puts districts under intense pressure to cut costs and ratchets up penalties on taxpayers if they don’t.  But union representatives don’t buy that explanation. They say board members twice rejected a tentative contract agreement because union members have complained to the board about the superintendent in the past.  The conflict bubbled up this summer.   After nearly a year of collective bargaining, representatives of the school board and the teachers union came to a tentative agreement in July, proposing a three-year contract that both sides supported at the bargaining table. But once the proposal went to the school board for approval, members voted it down twice this summer.  Tensions reached new heights last week when the union that represents teachers in the district,  the Vermont-NEA, filed a complaint with the Vermont Labor Relations Board alleging that board members bargained in bad faith and retaliated against them.  It’s rare for teacher contract disputes to escalate to a labor complaint, according to Darren Allen, communications director for the Vermont-NEA. He said it’s the first instance he’s seen during his 21 years in the job.  Although the Blue Mountain Education Association’s latest contract expired in June, teachers are still getting paid. But Allen said they are likely making less money than they would under the tentative agreement the school board rejected.  The Blue Mountain Union School District serves nearly 400 kids from the towns of Groton, Wells River and Ryegate in its single prekindergarten through 12th grade school. The district is part of the Orange East Supervisory Union.  During a Wednesday night board meeting, members decided to go back to the union with a new draft of a proposed agreement, according to Orange East Superintendent Heather Lawler.  For Blue Mountain teachers, morale is low, said local union representative Jessica Roy, who teaches third and fourth grade at the school.  “We’re starting our year feeling uneasy about this whole situation and why it’s happening,” Roy said.  Negotiations The union’s complaint to the labor board, shared with VTDigger, includes its description of how the saga over teachers’ salaries began with bargaining a new three-year contract in September 2025.  While negotiations dragged on, the teachers union spoke to its members in May to hear their concerns about working conditions. The union heard broad consensus that teachers lacked faith in Lawler, according to Roy, who declined to provide specifics about the complaints.  Representatives from the union then presented those concerns to the school board on July 1.  Soon after, representatives from the school district and the teachers union reached a tentative agreement at the bargaining table, according to the union’s labor filing. And on July 13, union members met with Lawler to discuss their issues with her leadership. Some teachers accused Lawler of lying to them while others said she generally wasn’t trustworthy, according to Roy.  After the union met with Lawler, the tentative contract agreement came up for vote at a July 30 school board meeting, and the majority voted it down — as they did a second time Aug. 5. Lawler said in an interview that although “it’s been really hard” to hear criticism from the union, it didn’t influence the board’s decision to reject the proposed contract.  The board voted the way it did because of financial concerns, Lawler said. She also said she feels like she’s been unjustly criticized for decisions that the board made as a whole.  But the board’s rejection was out of the ordinary for contract talks, according to Allen, the union spokesperson. “Almost always, until now, a tentative agreement was a sure thing,” he said.  The union alleges that school board members who helped reach the tentative agreement in bargaining then turned around and advocated against it to the full board, in violation of Vermont labor law.  “They’re required to advocate for the deal they reached at the table,” Allen said.  In an Aug. 6 statement, school board members said they deeply appreciated teachers and rejected the agreement for financial reasons.  Tight funds While bargaining is ongoing, both sides are restricted from revealing the specifics of the tentative agreement, according to Roy and Lawler.  But, according to board member Dan LaCoss, the district estimates that the proposed teachers’ salaries for next year and the year after would put district costs above the state excess spending threshold.  The excess spending threshold is a mechanism to impose increased taxes on districts that spend more than a certain percentage above the average statewide per-pupil cost.  Legislation passed this year lowers that threshold year by year. For the next fiscal year, which starts in July, the excess spending threshold will be 115.5%, down from its previous 118%. Any spending above the threshold results in extra taxation for local residents. The school board wouldn’t approve a district budget that exceeded the state’s excess spending threshold, LaCoss said. At that point, it would instead look to cut staff positions or school programs, which it would prefer to avoid, he added.  “Our concern is doing harm for our students,” he said.  In the meantime, negotiations are expected to continue. Both sides are tentatively set to return to the bargaining table next week, according to Allen. Read the story on VTDigger here: Tensions mount over teachers’ contract in Blue Mountain Union School District. ...read more read less