District, teachers discuss contract Palmerton back in negotiations

Palmerton Area School District’s board negotiating team met with teachers’ union leadership following a school board meeting Tuesday night.

The two sides are continuing to work toward a contract resolution. Teachers have worked under an expired contract since June 30, 2016.

Last month, representatives from the district and the Palmerton Area Education Association said recent sessions had been encouraging.

Board President Barry Scherer said Tuesday that the two sides had exchanged offers over the past month.

“Tonight we are presenting them with a counteroffer,” Scherer said Tuesday.

He declined to go into specifics on what the offer would entail.

Following discussion at a workshop earlier this month, the board approved the 2018-19 course catalog Tuesday night.

“Accounting 2,” “Electronics” and “SAT Prep” classes will be added choices for students next school year. The courses will run, district officials said, if enough students enroll in them.

The additional accounting course would help the district with its career readiness indicators, one of the ways it is evaluated each year.

The electronics course, likely to run in the spring semester, will feature a Carbon Career & Technical Institute instructor, Joe Farkas.

The SAT preparatory course will have 45 days of English instruction and 45 days of math instruction, Palmerton Superintendent Scot Engler said.