Norwich – Norwich Free Academy officials have asked Norwich school officials to sign the proposed uniform partner town contract by March 31, saying the academy will not negotiate a separate contract with Norwich, but Norwich school board Chairwoman Yvette Jacaruso responded Tuesday with a new request to negotiate. 

With the most recent letter exchange between officials from the two school administrations, the contract impasse between NFA and Norwich Public Schools continues this week, as many of the seven other partner towns with the academy prepare to sign the proposed contract. 

Preston Superintendent John Welch signed the agreement and forwarded it to the academy for signatures. 

NFA and Norwich officials dispute some details of talks that took place over the past several months with a consortium of partner towns, headed by Lisbon Board of Education Chairman Randy Baah. 

Those talks resulted in the proposed contract now being reviewed and signed by many of the towns. But in December, Norwich rejected that proposal and sent its own proposed contract to NFA officials. That in turn was rejected, and NFA last week requested that Norwich sign the uniform agreement by March 31. 

The only difference in the Norwich contract is the continuation of a longstanding $100 per student discount for Norwich in regular and special education tuition, because Norwich provides fire and police protection to the academy as host town. 

In a letter dated March 5 sent by NFA’s attorney, Nicholas Grello, to Norwich public schools’ attorney, Saranne P. Murray, Grello said NFA is unwilling to sign a separate contract with Norwich that deviates from the uniform contract except for the host-town tuition discount. 

“Such conduct on the part of the NFA would be unfair to the other sending boards and is not warranted,” Grello wrote. “Moreover, such conduct would be contrary to a commitment made by the NFA to each of the sending boards (including the Norwich Board) that it would not negotiate separate contracts with each of the boards.” 

In her response Tuesday, Jacaruso said Norwich should have a separate contract, because the city’s situation is so different than the much smaller partner towns. Norwich expects to send 1,251 regular education students, more than 200 special education students and another 65 students to the Sachem transitional program. In total, Norwich students are two-thirds of the academy’s total projected 2015-16 enrollment. 

Jacaruso wrote that NFA’s bill to Norwich is expected to increase by 2.18 percent based on the academy’s 2.5 percent tuition increase and projected Norwich enrollment. In addition, Norwich spends about $2 million providing special education support staff to NFA to serve Norwich students. 

“This is an increase of $534,304,” Jacaruso wrote of the tuition bill increase. “That is a large amount of money! A contract is an agreement negotiated between parties to come to a final agreement. NFA has not negotiated with us or even responded to our requests to meet. Again we are asking to negotiate with NFA the proposed contract starting July 1, 2015. We are willing to sit down and talk at any time to resolve this matter.” 

NFA Board of Trustees Chairman Theodore Phillips said Tuesday he had not yet reviewed Jacaruso’s letter. Phillips recounted the several months of negotiations and repeated that Norwich was initially part of those talks. He said the trustees approved the “master agreement” in February. 

“As I have repeatedly promised all Chairs of NFA’s partner Boards of Education since my first meeting with them in November 2013,” Phillips said in a written statement, “other than the host town adjustment recognizing fire and safety protection provided by the City of Norwich, NFA would not negotiate a separate contract for any town at the expense of the others.” 

Since Preston signed the contract, the agreement became public in that town. The five-page agreement runs from July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2020, with automatic five-year extensions unless either party notifies the other of a request to renegotiate 24 months in advance. Any plans to terminate the agreement also must be made 24 months in advance and phased in to allow current students to finish their high school education at NFA. 

The contract calls for tuition payments to be made monthly based on student enrollment calculated on Oct. 1 of the current school year for the following year's budget. An adjustment for special education tuition — NFA has several programs with varying tuition rates — will be made each February based on changes to enrollment, the contract states. 

The contract also provides for bi-monthly meetings of partner school districts, with NFA providing all districts with summaries of the meetings within two weeks. 

In addition, NFA pledged to work with partner towns to provide joint activities and programs for seventh- and eighth-graders and some programs for town residents, possibly including loans of library materials from the Edwin Land Library at NFA to the partner towns’ public libraries and electronic access to the Land library for residents.

c.bessette@theday.com

Twitter: @Bessettetheday