Norwich - About 50 Norwich Regional Adult Education teachers have won a three-year effort to gain negotiating rights with city school officials after a complicated legal challenge that ended with a ruling that the teachers should be part of the Norwich Teachers League.

The teachers will be part of the league as it begins negotiations in September on a new contract that would take effect on July 1, 2012. Questions remain on whether the adult education teachers would receive retroactive pay to the May 16 state Department of Education ruling that the teachers should be part of the union.

Adult education teachers now receive $30 per hour without a contract and receive no health benefits, sick time, paid holidays or paid snow days. Several program coordinators, who were deemed ineligible to join the union, receive an extra $2 per hour.

Adult education teachers first approached school officials about 15 years ago to ask if they could "have a conversation" about their wages, adult education teacher Cheryl Egan said. The group was rebuffed because they were not part of a bargaining unit, Egan said.

In 2008, the teachers tried again. They asked to join the Norwich Teachers League, the union that represents public school certified teachers and were told they could not, Egan said.

So the group hired Norwich attorney Frank Manfredi and tried to join the American Federation of Teachers. That union said the teachers had to join the Norwich Teachers League.

Quoting from the Norwich Teachers League contract, Manfredi said the teachers' league has the exclusive right to represent certified public school staff in Norwich.

Manfredi went first to the state Department of Labor and then to the state Board of Education and was dismissed each time, because the group was not part of the union.

Manfredi went back to the labor board last July, but a scheduled hearing was abruptly canceled when the Norwich Teachers League filed a petition with the state Department of Education seeking clarification on whether the adult education teachers qualified for the union.

Manfredi filed a petition to intervene, but both the Norwich Board of Education and the Norwich Teachers League objected.

Acting Education Commissioner George A. Coleman ruled that most adult education teachers, except several program coordinators, belong in the union.

"I'm just happy that it's finally concluded," Manfredi said, "although they didn't get to be heard on it."

Norwich Teachers League Co-Presidents Elizabeth Hanlon and Stacy Hungerford referred questions to the league's attorney, Michele Ridolfo O'Neill of the parent Connecticut Education Association. O'Neill has been unavailable for comment.

The Norwich Teachers League has not yet contacted adult education teachers. In a written statement, adult education teachers said CEA officials assured them in January that they would "immediately" start representing them if the state ruled in their favor.

"On May 16, it did, and we are looking forward to the union contacting the adult education teachers," the statement said. "We look forward to this and an especially a long overdue conversation regarding some basic concerns that the adult education teachers have had for years. This (summer) time, before our students return to classes, seems like an ideal time to begin what we hope is a productive dialogue."

c.bessette@theday.com