The first negotiation session since Palmerton Area School District teachers went on strike ended Wednesday night without the framework for a new contract in place.

Tom Smelas, Palmerton Area Education Association president, said board President Chuck Myers called the union to the bargaining session.“We attended the meeting, without Pennsylvania State Education Association representation, in hopes of good faith bargaining,” Smelas said.“The PAEA negotiating team is outraged in that only a verbal, nonwritten proposal was given to us by attorney David Conn. The district’s proposal was that if we agreed to end the strike by 8 p.m. Wednesday night, the school board would give the PAEA a salary schedule as a last-best final offer but ‘we weren’t going to like it.’ ”Conn was filling in for regular negotiator John Audi, who is on vacation.According to the association, the board was willing to present the proposal with a salary matrix “in a few days.”District responseThe district’s negotiating team also released a statement following Wednesday’s session.“At the board meeting on (Tuesday), there was considerable public comment asking the district to meet with the union during the strike,” the statement said.“While the district was skeptical that any proposal other than accepting the association’s proposal would be entertained, the district nevertheless asked to meet (Wednesday night) to make one last suggestion. At that negotiation session, the district asked the association to call off the strike and get the kids back in school. In return, the district offered to send a proposal based on the salary matrix in the current collective bargaining agreement.”During Tuesday night’s board meeting, Smelas said the association’s “line in the sand” was the district backing off its proposal to eliminate a salary matrix used by “at least 500 other school districts in the state.”“Again, the district’s proposal was that it would concede to make an offer based on the salary matrix which the union has been advocating,” district negotiators said. “Such an offer would require some time to prepare. Nevertheless, the association responded by saying that in the absence of a comprehensive proposal, the strike would continue.”Meeting without lawyerSmelas said the union also asked for a meeting with four members of the association bargaining team and four members of the school board without Conn present.“They refused the request,” Smelas said. “It’s painfully obvious the board’s negotiating team had no intention of bargaining this evening and simply drug us into this meeting to satisfy the demands of the public. It’s also very clear and very disappointing that the board doesn’t want to take responsibility for attempting to bargain this contract to settlement and wants to throw it into the hands of an outsider at the added expense to the taxpayers of Palmerton.”According to the district, the state mediator “concluded that scheduling any future negotiation sessions at this time would be senseless. As the association has routinely and repeatedly refused to bargain off of their first and only offer, sadly, it appears the strike must run its course until the parties are able to enter into non-binding arbitration.”Classes were canceled again Thursday, marking the ninth straight day students would be home.