Newton's School Committee will meet behind closed doors Thursday, Oct. 8, to discuss its bargaining strategy ahead of contract talks with the Newton Teachers Association.

The Negotiations Subcommittee scheduled a 4 p.m. executive session at the Education Center, 100 Walnut St., Room 218, according to the meeting notice filed with the city clerk. The committee cited Massachusetts General Laws c. 30A, §21(a)(3), which allows closed sessions when an open meeting could hurt the committee's bargaining position. The notice was received by the clerk at 3:25 p.m. on Sept. 29.

The session's sole agenda item is strategy for collective bargaining with NTA Units A through E. Those five units cover nearly 2,000 teachers, educational support professionals, instructional staff and IT employees across Newton Public Schools, according to Fig City News. The committee will not reconvene in open session afterward.

The agenda lists all nine School Committee members and ex officio Mayor Marc Laredo. The subcommittee's negotiations team has included Chair Alicia Piedalue, Vice Chair Jason Bhardwaj and Ben Schlesinger, according to the NTA's February 2026 eBulletin. The Oct. 8 agenda does not specify which members will attend the closed session.

The current NTA contracts expire Aug. 31, 2027. Both sides began laying groundwork months ago. The NTA ran member focus groups and bargaining surveys starting in January 2026, though neither party was contractually required to begin talks until this fall, according to the union's January eBulletin.

By mid-September, the two sides had exchanged proposals on ground rules. One unresolved question: the School Committee proposed livestreaming joint negotiation sessions, and the NTA polled its members on whether to agree, according to the union's Sept. 13 eBulletin. The outcome of that poll has not been made public.

The talks come during a leadership transition at the union. NTA President Mike Zilles, a former Newton North High School Spanish teacher who leads the nearly 2,000-member organization, announced his retirement at the Sept. 1 teacher convocation, effective at the end of the 2026–2027 school year, as we reported Sept. 9. His successor has not been publicly named.

NTA Release Officer Ryan Normandin, a math and physics teacher at Newton South High School, described the union's posture in a Sept. 3 interview published Sept. 8 by Fig City News. "We take our direction from our members — whatever matters to them is what we work on," Normandin said.

No date for the first joint bargaining session between the two sides has been announced.