"I've taken a lot of time, read their collective-bargaining agreement - none of it has to do with the education of our kids," said Porreca, whose daughter is a sophomore at Neshaminy High. "It's a gimme, gimme, gimme - all the things they have and things they want to keep. And they don't want to contribute to health care when they're making six-figure salaries. That is unbelievable to me."
In many ways, the sprawling Lower Bucks County district, where a protracted contract dispute has played out in the streets and over the airwaves for more than two years, is the tempest-tossed center of a perfect storm sweeping the region, starting with a war of words in New Jersey and spreading to more than a dozen suburban Pennsylvania districts.
The conflict pits teachers eager to hold on to hard-won gains in pay and benefits against a growing number of taxpayers beaten down by the long economic slowdown who question why so many classroom instructors earn more than $80,000, and in some cases more than $100,000, a year.
Much of the controversy over teachers' unions has focused on New Jersey and the increasingly bitter conflict over pay and proposed givebacks between pull-no-punches Gov. Christie and the New Jersey Education Association.
But there are 13 districts in the suburbs north and west of Philadelphia, and 19 in south Jersey, with unresolved union contracts. Increasingly, the new variation of class warfare is playing out in places like Neshaminy or neighboring Pennsbury in Bucks County, where last year three new board members were elected by promising to all but crush the teachers union.
