A Quiet Rumble in the Tiverton School District

As I pulled up to the Tiverton High School at the usual time for a school committee meeting, I saw two of my Tiverton Citizens for Change co-conspirators leaving. The committee scheduled an executive session for 5:00 p.m. and had worked through all of tonight's interesting public discussions before 7:00. The key results, as conveyed to me in the parking lot:

• Chairman Jan Bergandy read a letter from local union President Amy Mullen that suggested that the union and school committee had agreed to accept the current contract as expiring next year (a brazen ploy that surfaced out of nowhere a few weeks ago). Mr. Bergandy declared Mullen's statement to be an outright lie, and the committee authorized its lawyer to take some sort of action.
• The committee agreed to issue a statement to the General Assembly opposing any sort of legislation calling for binding arbitration.
• The committee also put on the agenda for its next meeting discussion of conducting union negotiations openly and in public.