This year is a negotiation year for teacher contacts. The teachers have been without contracts since August 15.

President of the Altoona Area Education Association, Jason Geis, and the committee, have been working with administration to get a ratified contract.

“My responsibility with the committee is to meet with the school district, explain what we hope to see in the contract, and the district comes with what they hope to see in the contract and we kind of hash it out and discuss, ‘Okay, you want this and we want this and how can we make it work,’” Geis said. “Eventually, if there is an agreement, then all of the members would vote on if they want to accept it or not.”

Administration and the committee are currently in negotiations and have not reached a consensus.

“Currently, we are status quo and what status quo means is our contract has expired, and we are working under the provisions of the previous contract, but nothing has changed and we are continuing with going through the process of trying to get a new contract,” Geis said.

There are steps that the committee and teachers can take if a contract isn’t made.

“There’s lots of possible steps that could be taken to remedy it, but the main one is to continue bargaining in good faith and to discuss the issues that we are having,” Geis said. “There is what is known as collective action and collective action could possibly involve the work stoppage where the teachers refuse to work. That’s usually an extreme situation, and it doesn’t come to that easily.”

Geis has expressed the feeling that the process is moving in the right direction.

“Sometimes it’s frustrating, but I feel that the process so far this year has been moving in a positive direction,” Geis said. “Although we haven’t reached an agreement, I feel it’s moving forward.”

The committee and administration are meeting to figure out what will go into the contract.

“When we meet is always up in the air and how often depends on the situation,” Geis said. “We probably won’t meet again until the new calendar [2022] year starts, but at one point we were meeting once a week for every week and then some things changed.”