CUMBERLAND -- Representatives for the teachers' union and the School Committee reached a tenative contract agreement last night, clearing the way for school to begin today.

After a second night of marathon negotiations, the two sides reached an agreement about 10:35 p.m., said Robert A. Walsh, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association.

School officials last night said schools would open one hour later than normal, to allow union officials to outline the deal for their membership. A ratification vote could be taken in a day or two, union leaders said.

Teachers hit the picket lines yesterday morning, which was to be the official start of the school year, after negotiations stretching into the early hours failed to reach an agreement.

Teachers' union president Rod McGarry said the union would meet with its 428 members at 6 a.m. today to discuss the agreement and tell them to report for work.

Cumberland, a district with 5,281 students, has been in contract negotiations since April, but meetings intensified when the state Department of Labor, at the request of the teachers' union, appointed labor lawyer John Harrington to serve as mediator this month.

The district is one of two school systems in the state -- the other is the Providence School for the Deaf -- that has postponed the start of school due to a teachers' walk-out.

It is the district's first major battle with the teachers' union since May 1995, when the union enacted a "work-to-rule" policy, a negotiating tactic in which teachers agreed to work no more than 6 3/4 hours a day.

That action, which essentially excluded teachers from extracurricular activities, bus monitoring and lunchroom duties, officially ended in October 1996.

Teachers over the summer voiced their displeasure over the district's initial offer of a 2-percent raise in each of the three years of the contract and a required 20-percent contribution to their health insurance premiums.

Under the 2003-2006 contract, teachers received a 4-percent raise in 2003 and 3.5-percent raises in 2004 and 2005 and were required to pay 10 percent of their health insurance costs.

"We have not agreed to anything relative to salaries or co-pay. Everything is still on the table," said McGarry earlier yesterday.

The union, which represents a largely veteran faculty (47 percent of Cumberland's 407 full-time teachers are on the top step of the salary scale), argues that district teacher salaries are nearly 12 percent behind the state average and that the town, which spends the least per student of any municipality in the state, shortchanges on education.

The district spent $8,709 per student in 2004, according to the most recent data from the state Department of Education.

Cumberland, which is the only district in the state with a 12-step pay scale, paid first-step teachers $32,774 and top-step teachers $63,747 in the 2005-2006 school year, the last year of the current contract.

That top-step salary is "not that far off from the norm," said Timothy Duffy, executive director of the state Association of School Committees.

School Committee member Robert C. Thibedeau, who, along with the five other members of the six-person committee, is negotiating for the district, said the committee is "looking for a fair, equitable salary at every step."

"There is a $4,000 difference between entry-level salaries at this district and the state average," he said.

Cumberland, which was one of the first in the state to adopt the percentage-based contribution to health insurance, would join the Chariho regional school district as the second district in the state to require its teachers to pay 20 percent of their health insurance premiums if they accept the district's offer.

But the increased burden on teachers could also exacerbate the district's problem of retaining young teachers, Duffy said.

"Going forward it's going to be hard to find entry-level teachers. They're going to look to other districts" with lower health-care costs, he said.

And in the struggle to finance public schools under rising cost pressures, Cumberland is in a tougher situation than most communities since it has an ordinance in place that restricts town spending more than the state limit on municipal spending.

The town enacted an ordinance in 2004 that curbs municipal spending by .5 percent in each successive year until a 3-percent spending cap, compared with the state's 5.5-percent cap, is reached in 2008.

The failure of both sides to take action until an hour an a half before the start of school yesterday annoyed parents, who said that the news disappointed some young children looking forward to the start of classes and forced some parents to make hasty arrangements for someone to watch their children.

The district delayed classes for one hour yesterday morning then canceled classes after the union, gathering its members at 6 a.m., voted unanimously not to come to work.

All teachers reported to a half-day of meetings and a seminar Tuesday but the majority did not go to work Monday, the district's orientation day for teachers.

"The fact that the teachers showed up [Tuesday] was a sign to me that talks were moving forward," Supt. Donna Morelle said. "It increased the likelihood that they would come to work today. And so a reasonable decision not to cancel school was made. I do not understand why they would think it was acceptable to report to a professional development day and not acceptable to report to the first day of school."

Union president McGarry said the union had asked the district to consider canceling school as early as 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, but the administration declined.

The uncertainty caused at least 10 students to report to the high school unaware that classes had been canceled, according to principal Stephen Driscoll.

"I was disappointed with how the school handled it this morning," said Tammy Drapeaux, whose 11-year-old son, Benjamin, would have been starting his first day at McCourt Middle School yesterday. "I don't know what it accomplished making parents and children wait until the last minute."

After hours spent picketing outside the high school while the union and district negotiated late into the night, "teachers were in no condition to be in class," she said. "How are they supposed to be ready to teach when they are tired and exhausted and have other things on their minds?"

pmarcelo@projo.com / (401) 277-7493