TEACHERS DEMAND BACK PAY, SCHOOL DRESS CODE APPROVED

A lively Board of Education meeting Monday night as some teachers spoke out to complain they had not received the retroactive pay promised to them in a new contract approved last summer, and the board unanimously approved a new dress code that offers less emphasis on females and promises a more equalized treatment.

Several members of the South Orange Maplewood Education Association attended the meeting and said they still have not received the back pay promised in the new two-year deal struck this summer. It it was retroactive for the 2013-2014 school year and forward to this current school year. The board promised the pay would be coming Friday.

On the dress code, the new version -- which claims to include equal treatment for boys and girls -- came about after complaints that girls were being unfairly targeted and that each school was enforcing it differently. Some South Orange Middle School girls had been sent home to change on occasion in recent years.

The new code is HERE.