Bellefonte School District Officials Share Details of Contract Proposals as Teacher and Staff Strike Looms

With a potential strike days away, Bellefonte Area School District officials on Tuesday shared publicly for the first time details of the contract proposals for its unionized teachers and staff.

The Bellefonte Area Education Association, which includes about 230 employees, is scheduled to go on strike Monday, Oct. 12, if a deal isn’t reached, and the information presented at Tuesday’s sometimes fraught school board meeting illustrated the gap between the district and union on the key point of salary increases.

The district has 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, district solicitor Carl Beard said during a presentation outlining the negotiations and proposals. BAEA has 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. Union members have said they are seeking salary increases that address the compensation gap that puts Bellefonte’s professional staff at the bottom of the pack among Centre County school districts.

“We feel that we are three million three hundred thousand dollars short of being able to give the teachers what they’re asking for,” school board President Jon Guizar said. “So, where do we come up with three point three million dollars? That’s that’s the challenge that we’re all facing. That’s what we’re trying to work through right now.”

A potential three-year agreement that Guizar said was floated by the union at Monday’s negotiations would narrow the gap to about $1.9 million.

The two parties have reached tentative agreements or agreements in principle on a number of issues, though in addition to salaries are still at odds over issues including personal and child rearing leave and language related to tuition reimbursement.

“It just needs to show that it’s a two-way street,” Beard said. “And when somebody says no movement, no collaboration occurred, that is not in fact a true statement.”

In a statement after the meeting, the union said it was “disappointed” by the district’s “inaccurate and misleading presentation of the course of negotiations, their finances, and their conduct throughout the process.”

“Despite an unfortunate choice to damage negotiations and drive the parties even further from agreement, we remain committed to meeting Saturday in an attempt to reach an agreement,” the BAEA wrote. “We will expect a proposal from the district that makes a genuine effort to close the gap between Bellefonte and surrounding districts and matches their claims that they are attempting to reach an agreement in good faith.”

Guizar said that the proposed 4.5% salary increase matches the five-year average growth in the district’s real estate tax collection. He added that while it is true that the past year saw a spike largely from the opening of the Amazon distribution warehouse and two hotels in the Benner Pike corridor, the 5.39% collections increase from $9.47 million in additional commercial valuations for 2026-27 is a “once-in-20-year event.”

“Just because we had a lot of growth in this year… we can’t count on that,” Guizar said. “We can’t speculate moving forward that we’re going to have three or four years of that same growth. So therefore, we can’t put that into our our financial numbers or or our offer.”

The presentation of the financial details came after an hour of public comment, during which all 14 speakers expressed unanimous support for the union.

Parents and students urged the board to come to an agreement that addresses salary concerns and avoids a work stoppage.

“A teacher strike is not good for Bellefonte,” parent Amanda Smith said. “It is not good for our students. It is not good for families who suddenly have to figure out child care and work schedules. It is not good for our teachers. And it’s not good for a community that’s working hard to grow, attract families and build a strong future. But preventing a strike cannot mean simply asking teachers not to strike. It means addressing the conditions that brought us this close to one.

“When virtually an entire professional workforce tells us there’s a problem, we should listen before we lose more of them.”

Matt Maris, a former social studies teacher at the high school, said he recently left for a position in a nearby district because he felt “underpaid, undervalued, unheard and micromanaged.”

“Like many others I struggled to afford to live in a community where I teach because teacher pay is not appropriate,” Maris said. “As much as I loved teaching at Bellefonte, there was an underlying problem eroding beneath me: inadequate teacher pay. What I was putting in I was not getting out. If you value public education student success and retaining and attracting good teachers, we must value and invest in our teachers.”

Three Bellefonte Area High School students voiced worries about the impacts of a strike on students and families, but each said they squarely backed the teachers and staff.

“No one goes home and talks to their family about these crazy teachers who don’t want to work,” senior Sadie Murphy said. “They go home and talk about their inconsiderate school board who is unwilling to compromise. We all stand with the teachers, not with you.”

Guizar and other school board members said they do not want to see a strike either and hope to come to a resolution before Monday.

“I can’t tell you how important that is to every single member sitting at this table,” Guizar said. “We absolutely do not want to see a strike… We’re making progress in the negotiating room, and all we have to do is continue to be creative and find some solutions to close these last few gaps.”

The last negotiation before the strike date is scheduled for Saturday. If a strike does occur, it would be Bellefonte school district’s first since 1972.

“The conduct of district representatives speaks for itself,” Connor Lewis, region advocacy coordinator for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said of Tuesday night’s school board meeting. “Bellefonte educators look forward to receiving the district’s proposal on Saturday.”

Should the work stoppage commence, the Pennsylvania Department of Education will determine the date teachers will need to return. Lewis said that teachers are prepared to stay on strike until ordered back to work by the department.

Superintendent Roy Rakszawski sent a message to families on Tuesday with details on management of district programs and services during a potential strike, adding that he is hopeful the contingency plans will not be necessary.

“If there is a strike, it will continue to evolve, and more questions will arise, and I’ll continue to update that,” Rakszawski said on Tuesday night. “My hope is that we can not have to use that information at all. But to be safe, we’re making those preparations, and we’re starting to communicate that to parents because they want to know what this would look like and what’s going to happen.”