Families in the Palmerton Area School District will be informed by 9 p.m. Sunday night if students will have school on Monday or if teachers will begin a strike.

The district made the announcement on its website,

www.palmerton.org, and said the 9 p.m. deadline would hold true for each day of the potential strike.Palmerton Area Education Association President Tom Smelas said no negotiations had been scheduled for Sunday as of 11 a.m., and that he would provide an update later in the day.The association is using its Facebook page,

https://www.facebook.com/Palmerton-Area-Education-Association-Negotiations-1319810551427057, to update the public.The current teachers contract in Palmerton expired on June 30, 2016, and both sides have been negotiating since February.Talks ended Friday night without a deal in place to stop the strike.Both sides issued statements on the session, with the association responding to a claim by the district that it walked away from the table without notifying the district.“We left the meeting and notified the mediator to contact us at any time if the district had additional offers,” the association posted. “If the call doesn’t come, sadly we will be the only union in history to strike for less money.”Meanwhile in its latest update, the district said it is waiting on its educators.“The district’s bargaining team feels that is has fulfilled its pledge to the community, and that the fate of Palmerton student education this year is now solely in the hands of the teachers’ union,” it said in a release on its website.According to the district, the mediator suggested a salary matrix for the four-year deal on the table that “reduced/eliminated a $12,000 jump step, and more evenly distributed the money throughout the matrix.”“The district believes its current offer of raising the starting salary to $50,000, providing every member, regardless of years of service, a 3.25 percent increase for each year of the contract, and a $1,500 stipend for attaining a master’s degree is more favorable for both union membership and the taxpayers,” the district said in its latest update.To the association, however, the offer was nothing it had not seen before.“What the board called a proposal Friday was nothing other than a rejection of the association’s proposal,” the association’s update said. “At no time did the board present PAEA with a new salary proposal.”According to the district, the association has asked for increases of 3 percent in the first year, 4 percent in the second and third years, and 5 percent in the fourth year of the contract. The Association said its four-year salary proposal remains around $5,000 less than what was committed by the school board.“The district’s proposal would pay a first-year teacher the same as a seven-year veteran Palmerton teacher,” the association said last week.A health care offering including a $350 deductible for a single indvidiual and $700 for a family, and copays of $15 for a family practitioner, $30 for a specialist, $40 for urgent care and $100 for the emergency room would be controlled by the Berks Trust, which the association said is a management/labor partnership and not controlled by the union. It is utilized by about 20 school districts.The district has said it is against the trust managing the health care plan, claiming it would lose the ability to bargain changed in the terms.“Despite the district misrepresenting health care increases to the taxpayers as a 9.3 percent increase, it was actually a 1 percent decrease,” the association said. “The Berks Trust frees up millions of dollars of taxpayers money, lowers the premiums and saves future potential tax increases. Upon the district’s rejection, the association returned to the current health care, with an increase in premium share, despite the fact that the premium decreased.”The district put out a letter Thursday preparing the community for the potential strike.In the event of a strike, all Palmerton schools would be closed for its duration. School days missed due to the strike would be added to the school calendar to reach the required 180 days.By law, teachers could strike up to 10 days on a first strike.Palmerton students who attend Carbon Career and Technical Institute, an Intermediate Unit program, or any other out-of-district program would continue as scheduled.According to the letter, the district would “make every effort to keep extracurricular programs operating,” and “all existing use of facility requests would be honored.”