Overwhelming Number of Workers at Centerpoint School Sign Petition to Unionize
Vermont Business Magazine Employees of Centerpoint School/Northeast Family Institute Vermont in Winooski are seeking to unionize for better pay and working conditions so they can be better equipped to serve Vermont’s highest-need students, according to a filing late Friday with the National Labor Relations Board.
The filing came after 90 percent of the school’s workforce signaled a desire to unionize, and after the school’s educators had asked Centerpoint School/Northeast Family Institute Vermont to voluntarily recognize their union, the Centerpoint Education Association, according to the Vermont NEA.
“We look forward to working collaboratively with Centerpoint management to improve our working conditions” said Mark Ferrara, a Counseling Teacher at Centerpoint with more than a decade of teaching experience and who is a leader in the unionization drive. “We feel a union will give us a stronger collective voice in advocating for ourselves and the students we serve.”
Centerpoint School/Northeast Family Institute Vermont is a therapeutic school that serves about 40 of Vermont’s highest-need students. The educational requirements of the school’s students are intense and demand student-specific individualized instruction. “Our students and their families rely on us to provide the intensive educational services they need,” Ferrara said. “We believe by forming a union, we can collectively bargain for better pay and benefits that will lead to better working and learning environments.”
Unlike traditional educators, Centerpoint’s faculty and staff do not have winter, spring, or summer vacations. Centerpoint’s educators are paid significantly lower salaries than their counterparts at the region’s public schools.
Since management at Centerpoint declined to voluntarily recognize the union, the NLRB will schedule a formal vote. If that is successful, the school’s educators would become members of the Centerpoint Education Association, the 13,000-member Vermont-NEA, and the 3-million-member National Education Association.
Source: Vermont-NEA. WINOOSKI – 4.4.2022
