Coventry superintendent previews tentative teacher and support-staff contracts; ratification votes postponed

Superintendent Don Cowart presented a timeline and fiscal analysis of tentative three-year agreements with the Coventry Teachers Alliance (CTA) and the school-related professionals (SRP) during a school committee meeting, and the committee postponed votes on ratification to the next meeting.

Cowart told the Coventry School Committee the negotiations were atypical in timing but necessary after the district changed health-care trusts earlier this year. "I thought it was important to do the presentation so that when people come to the next meeting, they've had some time to, digest the information, understand what's being discussed," Cowart said.

The superintendent said the district and union leaders opened the collective bargaining agreement specifically to address prescription-drug plan language and to set a new three-year salary schedule. Under the tentative CTA deal Cowart described,…