Over a month removed from an arbitration hearing, neither Palmerton Area School District's board of directors nor its teachers' union knows when to expect a recommendation on a contract dispute resolution.

At a school board meeting last week, both sides spoke up on the status of negotiations, which have been on-again, off-again since early 2016.Palmerton's teachers contract expired on June 30, 2016, and union members went on strike in January for two weeks.Tammy Recker, a member of the board's negotiating team, said the arbitrator recommended the two sides continue to meet as "they were not that far off.""I wanted to talk," she said. "Others wanted to talk, but the majority rules and the majority of the board said no."The district's attorney, John Audi, said the reason the board hasn't come to the table recently is "because the union only wanted to meet with select people on our negotiating team.""That's not how the process works," Audi said. "We're not willing to have you select who you meet with."Audi also claimed the board offered to meet four times before the conclusion of the arbitration hearing."We did make concessions at arbitration, but we were told no on a potential meeting," he added.Audi's comments were strongly refuted by Palmerton Area Education Association President Tom Smelas."The school board, through their attorney or whoever, absolutely never came to us four times in order to negotiate," Smelas said after last week's meeting. "(Audi) is throwing things out there, trying to let people believe whatever they hear, but it is absolutely false. If he thinks there were four offers made, I want him to show us the dates."In fact, Smelas added, "PAEA reached out to the board to meet in early May to possibly avoid arbitration, and the response we got back from them was that the board was not interested in meeting and wants the arbitration process to go on."Director Josann Harry joined Recker in backing a meeting between the two sides."I am definitely for the board and teachers sitting down and discussing things like adults," she said. "However, the majority of the board rules."On the flip side, board President Chuck Myers said a meeting likely won't happen until the room is full."We don't want two versus two or something like that," he said. "We want full team versus full team."