City braces for a one-day school strike

After 13 months of negotiations, Boston teachers appear ready to hold a one-day strike on Thursday for the first time in 14 years, forcing city and school officials to draw up contingency plans for the system's roughly 58,000 students with no school to attend.

City and school officials detailed plans yesterday for Boston's community centers and public libraries to accommodate children of working parents by expanding their hours and bringing in additional staff. The city would pay about $400,000 for those accommodations, as well as providing breakfast and lunch to the children and stationing police in the areas of teacher protests and where out-of-school students might congregate.

While negotiations are expected to continue through tomorrow night, school and Boston Teachers Union officials say they remain divided on the issues of classroom size, contributions to health insurance, and teacher pay.

In 1993, the strike also was only for one day, and it quickly led to a resolution of the contract.

The school system is offering a 10 percent raise in base salaries spread over four years; the teachers are asking for nearly a 22 percent raise spread over four years, according to school and union officials. The school system estimates its offer will cost about $103 million, and the union's about $237 million.

The school system wants the right to increase class size by up to two students, while the teachers union wants to maintain its right to veto any additions.

Mother Nature, though, could delay the planned strike: A snowstorm is expected late today. The union sent an advisory to its members yesterday, saying that if school is canceled tomorrow, the vote on whether to strike would be postponed for two weeks.

Superintendent Michael G. Contompasis said the threat of the teachers strike is real, though he said he believed that none of the disputed issues is big enough to warrant the disruption that a strike would cause for students and parents. The money is not there to meet some union demands, he said.

"The union has to give a little bit on some of the real hard-core issues we're facing," Contompasis said.

Richard Stutman, union president, said negotiotiations with management have been in good faith.

"We have spent 161 3/4 hours negotiating," Stutman said. "We are trying dutifully to reach an agreement with them, but it's not working."

Teachers and other public employees are prohibited from striking by state law.

Last month, the state Labor Relations Commission ruled that the union had to stop encouraging its members to strike. The union did not stop, and the commission took the union to Suffolk Superior Court, arguing that it is in violation of the order.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino expressed his ire at the impending strike through a spokeswoman.

"The mayor just wants what's best for the children," said Dot Joyce, the mayor's spokeswoman. "And having an illegal strike and having teachers not report to school to teach our children is not in the best interest of our children."

At the urging of the mayor and Contompasis, 37 community centers have agreed to take children, most from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. A dozen branch libraries will open earlier than usual, at 8 a.m. There will be no charge to parents at the community centers or libraries, which will add programming, including tutoring, videos, and story time.

"We have just about every board game you can imagine," said Ernest Hughes, program supervisor at Grove Hall Community Center in Dorchester, which will increase the number of supervisors.

Beyond the 58,000 Boston public school students, about 6,000 children who attend parochial, private, and charter schools will also be affected, because their buses will not run if teachers strike, school officials said.

Union leaders said that 2,500 teachers' aides would end up with less overall compensation under the current proposal because of the increase in healthcare contribution.

School district leaders have proposed increasing workers' contribution to healthcare from 10 percent to 15 percent, saying the city cannot afford to keep paying for so much of skyrocketing health insurance costs.

The negotiations with the teachers union will set the pattern for salary and benefits for police and fire unions, who are further behind in contract talks.

In 1993, hundreds marched on City Hall Plaza after going two years without a contract and three without a raise. Within two weeks, teachers had a one-year contract with a 3 percent raise.

In 2004, the teachers union voted to hold a one-day strike on March 23; after Menino personally got involved in negotiations, a preliminary deal was reached on March 17, averting the strike.

Contompasis and Stutman plan to participate in a debate at 6 tonight at the Grover S. Cleveland School in Dorchester on the status of the negotiations.

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.