A dispute over who may sit in on contract negotiations between the Lehighton Area School District and its teachers union boiled over Monday night with a board member accusing the president of acting unilaterally to cut him out of the process and a fellow director suggesting a recent court ruling was being “weaponized” against him personally.

At the center of the dispute was Director David Bradley, who made a motion, which failed 6-3, to be added to the district’s three-member negotiations committee.

Board member Joy Beers did not mince words about what she believed was happening.

“Quite frankly, to me, it looks like you may have annoyed some people during the last negotiation committee meeting, and now this court case is being weaponized, specifically, personally, to exclude you,” Beers said to Bradley.

Lehighton’s negotiations committee is made up of directors Heather Neff, Jeremy Glaush and Lory Frey.

Frey, Neff, Tim Tkach, Alex Matika, William Howland and Denise Hartley voted against adding Bradley to the negotiations committee. Bradley, Glaush and Beers supported his addition to the group.

Attendance issue questioned

Bradley had been attending negotiations sessions as a silent observer. He said the arrangement had been working — that what he witnessed, even without speaking, helped him better advise the committee members who were doing the bargaining.

“I was a fly on the wall watching the negotiations process, and even though silent during the meeting, I was able to use the information while attending the meetings to provide to our committee members information that will help us as a group negotiate the contract with our union representatives,” Bradley said.

That arrangement ended, Bradley said, when Matika, who is board president, sent an email to the board directing all directors to stop attending, effective immediately. Matika cited a verbal warning from the district’s solicitor about a court ruling involving Upper St. Clair Area School District, which he said established that even silent board members at a negotiation session could form a quorum — and inadvertently bind the district to a contract outside of a public vote.

Matika said he acted on advice that he had the authority to make that call alone.

Bradley challenged that directly, arguing that under Pennsylvania school code, government bodies may only exercise authority explicitly granted to them.

“Government can only do what the government is authorized to do,” Bradley said. “Everywhere in the school code it says no individual board member has any authority other than what’s given to them in the school code.”

Attorney weighs in

The district’s attorney, Beth Shore of Fox Rothschild, was on the call and confirmed the legal concern at the heart of the matter — but acknowledged she could not produce the case citation on the spot.

“It essentially created a circumstance in which the school board was bound outside of a public vote because there was a quorum of individuals present,” Shore said of the Upper St. Clair case. “I can send it to you. I don’t have a citation right now.”

She said the board president did have discretion to manage committee membership but stopped short of saying he could legally bar a director from attending outright.

“You elected a board president, you give the board president discretion to make decisions about this, and as directors, the right thing to do is to honor that discretion,” Shore said. “I’ll be frank with you, I have never had a school district take an issue with this.”

Bradley was not satisfied. He said his right to attend was grounded in a separate legal precedent.

“Since I choose to exercise my rights under Smith v. Richmond to attend, I think the board does have to make a policy,” Bradley said. “And then the question becomes — if we make that policy and I go in front of the judge in Carbon County, will it hold up?”

Matika, for his part, said he had no interest in expanding the committee regardless of the legal debate. He framed his opposition in practical terms.

“If your pitcher is pitching great through seven innings, you’re not going to pull them. You’re going to ride it out,” he said. “I’m told our negotiations team is working great and doing a good job. I don’t have any motivation to change things up.”

After the motion to add Bradley to the committee failed, Bradley made an unusual request: he asked the board to formally vote to exclude him — so the record would be clear.

“I have a right to attend, and if I am not excluded, I will attend,” Bradley said.

Shore said she was puzzled by the request, noting that a select negotiations committee was already in place and a separate exclusion motion seemed unnecessary. The board did not take up the motion.

Bradley said he wanted to attend the bargaining sessions after what he had witnessed up to that point.

“The teachers are the frontline workers,” Bradley said. “We should be understanding what they need and they should be understanding what we as a board need. None of this was discussed. It was all about hours and when you can get off work. And can I take different personal days.”

Shore said Bradley was “getting close to the line” of disclosing negotiation talks.

“As a member of the bargaining unit, I would hate to have our conversations misrepresented,” teacher and union negotiator Mike Lusch said Monday.

Executive session

Director Denise Hartley offered a perspective that cut through much of Monday’s tension. Whatever happens at the negotiating table, she noted, the full board must still ratify any agreement.

“If you’re ultimately going to have the ability to vote, whether you’re at the bargaining negotiations committee or it comes to the board, you’re still going to have the opportunity to have a voice,” Hartley told Bradley. “If the majority would agree with you that something in the contract isn’t right, it would then go back to the negotiations committee.”

Shore agreed that was a sound point and noted that executive sessions already provide a legal avenue for briefing the full board on negotiations without compromising confidentiality.

“One of the exceptions for executive session discussions is to discuss labor negotiations,” she said. “To the extent that any further decisions would need to be made or input solicited from other board directors during negotiations, those conversations could happen in executive session as well.”

Matika ultimately offered a resolution: any director wishing to be briefed on the status of negotiations could request a 15-minute executive session before each regularly scheduled board meeting.

“If any director has interest in hearing progress on the negotiations committee, please let me know ahead of time, and we will schedule a 15-minute executive session prior to this regularly scheduled legislative meeting or workshop,” he said.