AMHERST — An executive session involving members of the Amherst-Pelham Regional and Union 26 school committees and Superintendent Maria Geryk is scheduled for Monday afternoon.
A posting for the meeting on the town and school websites shows that the committees will meet at 5 p.m. at the Professional Development Center at the Amherst Regional Middle School. The members will begin in open session and then immediately adjourn to executive session. The meeting is not scheduled to return to public session.
The reason for the executive session, according to the posting, is “to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel (Superintendent Maria Geryk) and to conduct collective bargaining sessions (with Union #26 and Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committees) and contract negotiations with nonunion personnel (Superintendent Maria Geryk).”
If the meeting happens, it will be the third for the purpose of conducting strategy and collecting bargaining negotiations with non-union personnel. Previously, the committees met July 13 and July 20 for more than six hours combined,
The boards had planned to meet to conduct strategy and collective bargaining negotiations with Geryk on July 27, but that meeting was canceled.
There has been no resolution to the topics being discussed, said Regional Chairwoman Laura Kent, who has said that when discussions are complete “the committee will share a statement.”
Geryk was not identified as the subject of the executive sessions held July 13 and 20. Both meetings were posted “to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel.”
Thomas Colomb of the Boston and Springfield law firm Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane attended both executive sessions, but no school employees were present.
The committees have not yet issued their annual evaluation of Geryk, which had been scheduled for July 18 before that meeting was canceled. The July 18 meeting was also to have served as a retreat for the school committees. That is now supposed to happen in August and be done in partnership with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
