Gateway School District’s teachers’ union has threatened to go on strike beginning May 24, according to union officials.

The Gateway Education Association notified Superintendent William Short on Tuesday morning that a strike will begin next Monday if a tentative agreement has not been reached. The district and association have been negotiating since January 2020.

The association’s 266 teachers, nurses, counselors, speech pathologists, social workers and behavior specialists have been working without a contract since June 30, 2020.

“We have tried repeatedly to offer reasonable, affordable proposals to resolve the negotiations, to no avail,” association President Grant Sample said.

School board member Mary Beth Cirucci, who is also on the board’s negotiating committee, disagreed.

“I’m pretty upset that they’re threatening to strike during a pandemic,” she said. “It’s kind of unconscionable.”

At its general meeting on Feb. 22, the association voted to give its negotiating team the authorization to call for a strike if necessary, and district administrators were informed shortly afterward.

The two sides have been unable to agree in multiple areas: the association is seeking a new six-year contract where the district wants only three; the association wants the length of the school day to remain at seven hours and 40 minutes where the district wants to add 20 minutes per day for an eight-hour school day that would offer additional instructional time for students.

Sample said the association is also concerned about other issues that were not addressed to members’ satisfaction in a fact-finder’s report.

“They recommended that the class size stay status quo, and that’s something very important to our families, having smaller class sizes and a better environment to educate our students,” Sample said. “Additionally, having a three-year contract means we’d have to start the negotiation process again in about a year-and-a-half, and that doesn’t provide a lot of stability to our families and community.”

Cirucci pointed to the association’s multiple rejections of the fact-finder’s report aimed at bringing the two sides together in compromise.

“Gateway unanimously agreed to the fact-finder’s report, and I think it shows you who really wants to settle this negotiation,” she said.

District officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The school board now has until Thursday to decide whether to accept the report and recommendations as it had previously, or to reject them. In either event, the parties will be required to continue negotiations.

Click here to read the fact-finder’s report.

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