Negotiations over the new contract between the town of Wayland and the Wayland Teachers’ Association, the local teachers’ union, have dragged on in recent months, leaving teachers working under an outdated contract.

Since late last winter there have been ongoing negotiations between teachers and the Wayland School Committee. Because no new contract agreement has been reached, teachers are now working under the most recent contract, which expired on August 1st of this year.

The School Committee, Superintendent Gary Burton, WHS Principal Patrick Tutwiler, and the Wayland Teachers’ Association all declined to comment on the causes of the hold-up, citing the legal necessity of keeping ongoing negotiations private.

Despite the lack of a contract, school officials remain optimistic. Said Burton, “This agreement’s taken a little bit longer than most, but I have great respect for our teachers; I know they do good work.”

The tense situation has resulted in rumors of a job action, a temporary protest against management policy.

For Wayland teachers, such an action might include refusing to perform any tasks not mandated by contract, a tactic known as “work to rule.”  That would leave students without chaperones for school trips and without recommendations for the National Honors Society.

No administrators could confirm that a job action is taking place. Burton says he has not been notified of one.

“No one has come to me officially, no one has put it in writing. The head of the union didn’t call up and say, ‘Gary this is what we’re going to do or not do,” he said.

Nevertheless, Wayland students are seeing some effects of the lack of a new contract.

The permission slip for the Wayland Middle School’s annual eighth grade cave trip this year included a warning at the bottom reading, “Please note that this year’s trip is unfortunately contingent on having a negotiated teacher’s contract approved by the date of the trip.”

The trip is scheduled for October 28th and 29th.

An e-mail sent by National Honors Society Faculty Adviser Mark Liddell to students said that many teachers are abstaining from writing recommendations for students’ National Honors Society applications as part of contract negotiations.

“NHS faculty advisory is taking into consideration the fact that there is a contract negotiation going on,” said Liddell. “We’ll just have to waive the recommendation piece.”

Similarly, Burton said that he has heard that Wayland teachers are not volunteering for any voluntary committees because of the contract negotiations.

According to Tutwiler, actions like these are “a fairly common strategy to get people to open their eyes.”  Burton agreed, saying actions, “may be more symbolic at the moment than anything else.”

When asked, the Wayland Teachers’ Association’s chief negotiator, Jim Page, declined to comment and referred reporters to the President of the Association, Conrad Gees.

“I’m hopeful that we move beyond our impasse this week and that we will soon have a contract; however, for the moment I cannot comment further than that,” Gees said.

One possible cause of the delay was the late start in contract negotiations. According to the currently binding contract between teachers and administration, new contract negotiations were to begin “no later than December 1st” of 2009.

However, according to Burton, negotiators met for the first time more than a month after that date, and then did not meet at all over the summer.

Another possible factor in the delay is budgetary woes.

“These are difficult times for a lot of reasons,” said Burton of the Wayland school system’s finances. He cited declining state and federal aid, rising operating costs, but primarily the cost of maintaining the high quality teaching staff Wayland currently employs.

“Eighty-five to ninety percent of every dollar spent in the operation of our school system leaves here in the form of a paycheck,” he said.

Tutwiler agreed, saying the most important driver of the budget was teachers. “We want to make sure that we have people who are growing professionals, taking courses, professional development opportunities…and that costs money,” he said.

The local situation follows a recent pattern of difficulty reaching settlement between teachers and school districts. According to the Boston Globe, King Phillip, Marlborough, and Watertown have also had serious conflicts and extended contract negotiations in the past two years.

School administrators stressed Wayland’s history of good relations with the teachers’ union and said they expect this round of negotiations to be no different.

“I wouldn’t say that there is more contention than usual, or more contention than the last time this happened,” said Tutwiler.

Though Burton agreed that negotiations were important to the School Committee and Wayland teachers, for him, the lack of a contract is “an unnecessary distraction” from managing the district.

While negotiations for both the teaching assistants’ union and the cafeteria workers’ union have been completed this year, the Wayland Educational Secretaries’ Association, which represents Wayland’s secretaries and custodians, has also not yet reached a contract.