NEWPORT — Contract talks between the Teachers Association of Newport and school negotiators will resume Tuesday, eight days before about 2,000 students return from summer recess.

“I make no forecasts beyond what happens on Tuesday,” Supt. John Ambrogi said yesterday, who declined to go into the details of the talks or to characterize their progress. “We’re still negotiating. Obviously, major issues in any contract are salary and benefits.”

Stephanie Martland, president of the 221-member union, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

“We’ve been meeting and working hard all summer. We hope we are going to have a contract in place by the start of September,” she said earlier this month. “It’s very amicable.”

The current three-year contract expires Aug. 31, with teachers scheduled to return to school Sept. 2, the day after Labor Day. Students begin classes the following day. (The number of students on the last day of school in June was 2,228; no figures for the coming academic year are available yet.)

The current contract, for the first time, required teachers to share in the cost of their health coverage. Their annual contribution now stands at 10 percent of the cost of their premiums.

The agreement also ended lifetime health coverage for teachers hired during and after the 2006-07 school year and anyone with fewer than 10 years of service in Newport schools. Teachers who retired after 2005 and remained in the lifetime-coverage plan now pay 15 percent of their premiums.

The “buyback” that teachers receive for not accepting health coverage is 50 percent of the premium, with a cap of $5,800.

Salary increases were 3.25 percent the first year and 3.75 last year and this year. The base salary this year for a top-scale teacher is $67,263, excluding additional pay for advanced coursework.

The last major labor unrest in Newport took place in 1995, when the union went on strike for seven days.

rsalit@projo.com