Votes set on Downingtown teacher contract

More than a month after the end of a nine-day strike in the Downingtown Area School District, the teachers and school board are scheduled to vote on the proposed agreement.

The district's 850 teachers are to cast ballots at their schools on Friday; the school board has scheduled a special meeting for 5 p.m. March 17 at Downingtown East High School.

Neither side will release details until the contract is approved. Union spokesman Robert Broderick said the delay in holding the vote was due to "issues that were agreed to on the last night of negotiations that it took this long to reduce to writing."

The strike lasted from Jan. 29 to Feb. 6, with teachers saying they were not being paid as much as colleagues in comparable county districts. The school board cited school construction expenses in the rapidly growing 11,730-student district, Chester County's largest, as a cause for fiscal restraint. The wage differences were resolved, but other issues, including contract retroactivity and whether to make up canceled teacher training days, kept the strike going.

- Dan Hardy