SAXONBURG — The South Butler School District teachers union says the teachers will strike March 15 unless a new contract is reached by then.

The 168-member South Butler County Education Association said Thursday that the teachers will strike at the beginning of the workday if a contract isn’t settled.

The teachers have been working under terms of a contract that expired in 2014.

Numerous negotiations between the teachers and school board have been held since then, but a new collective bargaining agreement has not been reached.

The last negotiating session was Feb. 8. No new sessions have been scheduled, said union negotiator Brooke Witt of UniServ.

She said the teachers hoped that some new school board members taking office this year would have resulted in the sides agreeing on a contract.

“It has been four years and two months that we’ve been negotiating. We were hopeful we’d be able to avoid a work stoppage. We hoped with the new board we could reach an agreement, but we haven’t. Going into a fourth full school year without a contract we felt this was the only way to put pressure on the school district to reach a settlement with us,” Witt said.

“In an effort to fairly settle the contract and avoid the strike, the association is available to negotiate as often as the district is available. The association is hopeful that the district will come to the table to negotiate and reach an agreement that benefits all stakeholders — students, teachers, and the community,” the union said Thursday in a news release.

Witt said she has been trying to schedule negotiating sessions with district solicitor Tom Breth and a state mediator.

“I expect there will be additional bargaining dates set soon — as soon as we’re able to coordinate,” she said.

The teachers want a seven-year contract retroactive to the expiration of the last contract, she said.

Wages and health care benefit costs are the major issues.

“Our position — we’ve worked and the district benefited and there should be appropriate wage increases for that time,” Witt said about the last four years.

She said the union proposed changes to the health care plan that would have saved the district “a big chunk of change.”

The release from the union said the strike date notification was given to Superintendent David Foley on Thursday afternoon. Breth said Foley is traveling out of town and could not have received the notice unless it was emailed to him.

The board and administration were told the union was going to provide the strike notice Friday, Breth said.

He said he asked the mediator to coordinate meeting dates with the union on Tuesday, but none have been scheduled.

The board will meet with the union with or without the mediator and the strike date won’t change the board’s approach to negotiations, he said.

“The board will continue their efforts to reach a fair, affordable collective bargaining agreement. This won’t change that. The board has always approached negotiations in a good-faith effort,” Breth said. “When we get back to the bargaining table, the board will give the teachers the compromise proposal they’ve been working on with me and we’ll go from there. Once the proposal is made to the teachers, the board will make public what they presented to the teachers.”

School board member Bob Goodlin declined to comment and several other board members couldn’t be reached Thursday evening.