BEAVER FALLS, Pa. – When teacher union members in Pennsylvania’s Blackhawk School District agreed to an “early bird” labor contract with the school board last September, they must’ve thought life was good.

Not only did the Blackhawk Education Association manage to get a new contract in place nine months before their current deal expires, but it contained very favorable terms. Beginning with the 2014-15 school year, BEA members were set to receive four years’ worth of across-the-board pay raises to go along  with their “step” raises – automatic pay hikes that are given for every year of employment.

The average Blackhawk teacher stood to receive an overall pay raise of 18 percent over the course of the deal. That’s a far bigger raise than most Americans are likely to see over the next four years, so BEA members must have felt they were walking in pretty high cotton when the deal was signed last fall.

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Unfortunately for union members, their enthusiasm for the contract wasn’t shared by taxpayers. Little more than a month and a half after the deal was seemingly finalized, voters replaced four school board members who had voted for the deal with fiscally conservative ones.

And three months later – in mid-February – the new school board did something unexpected: It voted 6-2 to revoke the union’s “early bird” contract.

School district attorney John Petrush justified the board’s unusual decision at the February 14 meeting by citing Pennsylvania case law that suggests an outgoing board cannot bind an incoming board with a future contract, the Beaver County Times reports.

The new, fiscally conservative board members apparently believe their predecessors behaved irresponsibly by handing out big pay raises to their union friends just before they rode off into the sunset. We’re left to speculate here, as board members declined to comment about the move for legal reasons.

Sweetheart deals like the BEA’s aren’t too uncommon between members of the Education Establishment. The adults in charge of the nation’s public schools like to take care of each other financially, whenever possible. It’s one of the main reasons K-12 officials always seem to be whining to taxpayers that schools are underfunded.

What is uncommon, however, is for a school board to take bold action against an irresponsible deal. That violates all kinds of unwritten rules – and possibly a few written ones, too.

Blackhawk board members have already incurred the wrath of union members and their backers who’ve expressed their displeasure at district meetings. The board will also have to face the legal challenges already underway from the BEA and its parent union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

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The unions have filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. Observers say the case could eventually end up in the courts and could take months – and a small fortune in attorney bills – to resolve.

Critics say the board is on a “fool’s errand” and that the only thing they’ll end up voiding is their credibility with district employees and community members. Maybe so. Time will certainly tell.

But Blackhawk leaders are also being cheered on by reform activists who are tired of seeing teacher unions and their allies use the education system to cater to the financial needs of adult employees, instead of the academic needs of students.

The unions may despise the six Blackhawk board members who voted to rescind the deal, but they’re probably heroes to at least a few frustrated taxpayers.

‘The least expensive’ contract in Blackhawk history?

Former Blackhawk board member Donald Inman voted for the “early bird” contract and is proud about it. Inman went so far as to tell the Beaver County Times that the contract “was the least expensive in Blackhawk history.”

Inman backs up that claim by arguing the deal only gives BEA members a 2 percent cost-of-living raise.

But in a PowerPoint presentation that’s posted online, district officials make the case that the raises in the deal total nine times that amount.

It’s true that BEA members will receive a 2 percent raise, but they’ll receive it each of the next four years. That makes it an 8 percent raise, and it will lift the average teacher’s salary by $4,953, according to district calculations.

That’s not the end of the pay raises. Most BEA members will also receive a “step” raise each of the next four years based on their union seniority. Teachers with more than 19 years of service will only receive the four, 2 percent across-the-board raises.

That means the average Blackhawk teacher will receive $10,866 in “step” raises. The total pay increase for an average BEA member over the life of the new contract will be nearly $16,000. That’s an 18.08 percent hike over the average teacher’s current wages, according to district calculations.

If that’s the “least expensive” deal in the history of the 2,500-student district, then it’s a wonder why taxpayers didn’t rise up long ago.

Perhaps the main reason there hasn’t been a taxpayer uprising before now – in Blackhawk and virtually every other labor friendly school district – is because the average journalist and voter simply doesn’t understand how teacher contracts work. Unionists and their supporters use confusing terms and numbers to bamboozle taxpayers into believing they’re giving them a good deal, when they’re actually picking their pockets clean.

The BEA tried that – and they might’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for the new, watchdog school board members.

Actually, they might still get away with it. How the Blackhawk controversy will end is anyone’s guess. But at least the board is trying to fight against Big Labor and its enablers in the Education Establishment.

What a concept: Elected officials standing up for taxpayers. It’s a rare occurrence in public education. That’s why our hats are off to them.