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School board member walks out over contract

Feb 13, 2013 7:04 am
Michael Raymond Hernandez reports in The Daily Mail Greenville school board member Gloria Bear walked out of a meeting Mon., Feb. 11, to compose herself after the full board approved Superintendent Cheryl Dudley’s new employment contract. “When I got on the board I said I was going to be fair and equal to everybody, I just don’t see [the contract as] being fair and equal to the bus driver, to support staff, to the teachers, to the cleaner, to everybody, …how equal are we going to be to the rest [of the school employees],” she said. Bear specifically objected to the health insurance provisions in the contract. For most school employees the district's contribution for health insurance after retirement is 50 percent; for Dudley the share is 85 percent. Board President Anne Mitchell said the new agreement represents a reduction in the district's share, down from 100 percent. Another board member called the provisions standard. “But we are not in standard times, we are not in the times we had before, we are not in the times that we have the money to even have a library," said Bear. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.