{"id":25594,"date":"2015-05-18T11:09:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T15:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=25594"},"modified":"2015-05-18T11:09:11","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T15:09:11","slug":"letter-what-does-keith-knauss-really-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=25594","title":{"rendered":"Letter: What does Keith Knauss really want?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>To The Editor,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Letters1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-1107794\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" alt=\"Letters1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Letters1.jpg\" width=\"140\" height=\"98\" \/><\/a>In a recent Unionville Chadds-Ford Board meeting, Director Keith Knauss advocated for stalling the negotiations process so that the contract with UCF teachers expires and goes into status quo.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the video of Mr. Knauss\u2019s comments <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/0B_uYTicr_HI9Slg0WUhaOHJ1VFk\/view\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>By entering status quo, the teachers would not receive any salary increases thereby, in Mr. Knauss\u2019s mind, save the District money.\u00a0 At the same time, healthcare benefits would also not change and automatic cost increases will take effect July 1st, thereby neutralizing any salary savings to the District.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To date, negotiations have been unproductive between UCF teachers and the School Board and a major sticking point is the District\u2019s demand that the teachers take a reduction in healthcare benefits \u2014in fact, switch to a whole new, punitive and inferior plan. The District says this plan is part of\u00a0their \u201cGuiding Principles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If the District\u2019s position is that a change in healthcare is necessary to settle a new agreement, why is Mr. Knauss suggesting otherwise?\u00a0 The District faces mandatory healthcare cost increases due to status quo that will eat up any savings due to a lack of salary increases.\u00a0 How can the District demand Healthcare benefit reductions if they are willing to let the contract expire and be hit with automatic increases July 1<sup>st<\/sup>?<\/p>\n<p>So either the District\u2019s demand to switch healthcare isn\u2019t really all that important, or Mr. Knauss doesn\u2019t want to provide the 323 hard-working and dedicated UCF teachers a fair raise?<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately this is a School Board decision. The whole School Board will vote on a final agreement between the District and UCF Teachers. Does the School Board feel the same way as Mr. Knauss? Or does the School Board want to settle a contract that is fair to the teachers and recognizes all the work they do to make the District one of Pennsylvania\u2019s best.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Scott Broomall<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> UCFEA President<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To The Editor, In a recent Unionville Chadds-Ford Board meeting, Director Keith Knauss advocated for stalling the negotiations process so that the contract with UCF teachers expires and goes into status quo. Watch the video of Mr. Knauss\u2019s comments here. By entering status quo, the teachers would not receive any salary increases thereby, in Mr. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[485,42,1349,1286],"class_list":["post-25594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-board-of-education","tag-teachers-contract","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-education-association","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}