Bellefonte Educators Union, School Board Ratify New Contract

Updated 3:08 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

The Bellefonte Area School Board and the Bellefonte Area Education Association voted on Tuesday to ratify a new contract agreement for about 230 unionized teachers and professional staff, officially ending a protracted process that nearly resulted in a strike earlier this month.

School board members voted 7-0, with one abstention, to approve the new four-year labor deal during their regular meeting. BAEA members voted “overwhelmingly” to ratify, according to union president Allison Kyte.

Jon Guizar, school board president, said union members will receive salary increases of 5.5% per year for each of the four years of the contract.

The votes came after the two sides announced a tentative agreement on Oct. 10 and the union withdrew its notice of a strike scheduled to begin two days later.

The primary sticking point during negotiations had been salaries. Union members said they were seeking salary increases that address the compensation gap that put Bellefonte’s professional staff at the bottom of the pack among Centre County school districts.

Kyte said in a statement that the new contract makes “a substantial investment in staff competitiveness.”

“This result is a testament to the collective action and advocacy of our members and community,” Kyte said. “Investing in our district isn’t finished, and our support staff need the same commitment we received. We look forward to supporting them in their upcoming negotiations, and in continuing the important work of building the schools our community deserves.”

The new contract represents a “significant investment in our educators in approximately $11.5 million in direct payroll and roughly another $2 million in enhanced benefits for a total investment of about $13.5 million over the next four years,” Guizar said.

“This is an unprecedented commitment and it reflects the value that we all place on the people who teach our children.”

Guizar added that covering the cost of the agreement will most likely involve a combination of growth in the tax base, “operational efficiencies and/or reductions” and tax increases.

As part of the new contract, BAEA negotiated creation of its own salary schedules and “control of the spread of those salaries across the schedule,” Guizar said.

“These were important priorities for our educators and I congratulate them on achieving both of those goals,” he said. “… I’m also excited for the year ahead and look forward to the work that our teachers and students do together, including the progress that we all want to see in academic growth and achievement, measured in part by improvement in test scores.”

Prior to the school board’s vote on Tuesday, the only discussion related to one board member’s exclusion from review of the proposed contract.

Joe Yech, who was the sole abstention, is married to Kyte and said the board leadership decided without his input to not provide him with the agreement documents because of a perceived conflict of interest.

Yech, however, said he was not involved in the negotiations and that he presumes the contract gives no special treatment to his wife. He said he spoke with an attorney who told him he had no direct conflict of interest in voting on the final agreement under the provisions of the state Ethics Act.

“Whether a board member has a conflict should be a decision made by that board member,” Yech said. “I feel you took that decision right away from me by excluding me from all the conversations around this agreed-upon contract with BAEA and not providing me with any documentation to review concerning that tentative agreement.”

He added that he was forced to abstain because he could not review the documents that all other board members received.

“I have no other recourse but to make this public statement informing the public that I was denied that requisite documentation to make that decision,” Yech said. “While what was done may not violate any laws, I do not believe it was right to do to me.”

Board President Jon Guizar said he did advise Yech to “recuse from all things contract” and that he reached out to legal counsel for a recommendation prior to an executive session to discuss the agreement on Tuesday night but did not receive a response.

“This is a first for me. …This is a very unique scenario that we have,” Guizar said. “Hopefully we can address those things maybe ahead of time in the future so we don’t end up in this situation but that’s the reason I said what I did.”

Yech said that his statement would be his last word on the matter and that he intends to “move on.”

How They Got Here

Talks for a new agreement began more than a year ago, but the BAEA’s last contract expired on June 30 and members started the new school year without one.

As negotiation sessions failed to produce an agreement, the union voted in September to authorize a strike notice for Oct. 12.

district officials had most recently proposed a 4.5% annual salary increase, an outlay of an additional $7.45 million over four years for an average annual raise of $3,175 per teacher.

BAEA had proposed a 6% annual increase, which would mean an additional $10.09 million over four years and an average raise of $4,332 per teacher.

Including mandatory retirement contributions and payroll taxes, the total gap between the two proposals is about $3.3 million.

Before reaching a tentative agreement, district officials had most recently proposed a 4.5% annual salary increase, an outlay of an additional $7.45 million over four years for an average annual raise of $3,175 per teacher, according to a presentation by the district’s solicitor at an Oct. 6 board meeting.

BAEA had proposed a 6% annual increase, which would mean an additional $10.09 million over four years and an average raise of $4,332 per teacher.

Including mandatory retirement contributions and payroll taxes, the total gap between the two proposals was about $3.3 million.

As negotiations grew publicly contentions, the union and school board in public statements gave conflicting characterizations of the bargaining sessions and were at odds over district finances. Among other disputes, while the union said growth in the district’s tax base positioned it to meet salary demands, Guizar said the proposed 4.5% salary increase matched the five-year average growth in the district’s real estate tax collection.

Guizar also said the board wanted a resolution that fairly compensated teachers and staff and kept tax increases at a level the community could bear.