JEFFERSON TWP — The South Butler School Board will present the teachers union with a new contract proposal that it hopes will lead to an agreement before the end of the current school year.

The board issued a “negotiations update” Tuesday afternoon that included the measure. Once it is presented to the teachers, the proposal will be posted on the district's website, www.southbutler.org.

The update said there are no bargaining sessions scheduled now, but Tom Breth, the board's solicitor and negotiator, has asked a state-appointed mediator, Bob Lavery, to coordinate the scheduling of bargaining sessions in March, April and May.

The two sides have been at a stalemate since 2014, when the last teachers contract expired, although several bargaining sessions have been held.

A state fact-finder heard both sides' cases in October 2015 and again in August. The school board approved both fact-finders reports, which would have become the contract if both sides approved either of the reports. The teachers rejected both reports.

The last bargaining session was held Feb. 8.

“The bargaining session was not productive and ended approximately an hour after it started,” the board's update said.

Brooke Witt of Uniserv, the teachers union negotiator, said the latest negotiating session saw the board present a proposal on two provisions that were the same as the board's initial proposal four years ago.

“All the conversations, debates and explanations by the association's bargaining team for four years, totally ignored,” Witt said in the statement at the time.

Witt said the teachers have chosen a strike date but would not divulge the date.

In the negotiations update, the board said the teachers “purposely misled the public regarding their intent to strike” after the Feb. 8 session.

Witt could not be reached Tuesday afternoon to respond to the board's update.