The agreement will result in a $180,000 savings to the school district.
WILBRAHAM - Teachers from the Hampden-Wilbraham Education Association have agreed to accept an offer from the Regional School Committee that they forego two of five professional development days during the 2011-2012 school year.
Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School Committee Chairman Scott R. Chapman said the agreement will result in a savings of $180,000 to the school district.
This will allow the district to restore approximately three teaching positions, Chapman said.
Without the professional development days, substitute teachers will not be needed to replace the teachers in the classrooms, resulting in the savings, Chapman said.
The School Committee has already voted to apply $490,000 in contingency funds to restore some popular programs which were slated to be cut next year.
Programs the committee already voted to restore include fifth and sixth grade band at Wilbraham Middle School, a science and engineering program at Wilbraham Middle School which will be expanded to Thornton Burgess Middle School in Hampden and an information technology program at Wilbraham Middle School which will be added to Thornton Burgess Middle School in Hampden.
So far no decision has been made to restore seventh grade French at Wilbraham Middle School.
Chapman said no decision has been made yet on which teaching positions will be restored.
The School Committee is expected to discuss this issue at Tuesday’s School Committee meeting, Chapman said.
The Hampden-Wilbraham Education Association represents 262 teachers in the school district.
Chapman said School Committee member Peter T. Salerno and Hampden-Wilbraham Education Association President Gary Manuel negotiated the give-backs by the teachers’ union.
Manuel could not be reached for comment.
After the current French students complete high school, the school district is considering replacing French with Mandarin Chinese and continuing to offer Spanish and Latin. There is increasing interest in Latin by students in the region, Regional School Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea said.
O’Shea said the school district feels it should offer a non-Western foreign language such as Chinese instead of French.
The teachers are due to get a 2.75 percent raise for the next school year.