TIVERTON — Talks have resumed this week between the Tiverton School Committee and the teachers union on a new contract, a union official said yesterday. But it’s unclear just how close — or how far — the sides are to settling the long-running labor dispute.

“We’re hopeful we will get to something,” said Kristen Destremps, vice president of the 200-member National Education Association/Tiverton. “We’re talking, so that’s a good thing.”

Destremps declined to comment on the status of the negotiations. She said both sides agreed at Wednesday’s meeting not to comment on the talks until the matter is settled.

“We decided not to talk to media and to keep everything between both of us,” Destremps said.

Destremps said the contract dispute wouldn’t affect schoolchildren, who return to classes Sept. 2.

“The teachers are going back to work, doing our jobs,” she said.

Schools Supt. William J. Rearick, School Committee chairwoman Denise deMedeiros and vice chairman Michael Burk couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday.

The union had earlier said that it would wait until after the November elections — when three of five School Committee seats are on the ballot — to resume talks. Rearick had balked at word of a longer delay, threatening to seek a court order implementing the school board’s latest contract offer if the talks were held up.

Union officials have said that the school board has dragged out the talks by not authorizing Rearick, who’s been chiefly negotiating the new contract, to reach a tentative agreement during bargaining. The union has filed an unfair-labor-practices charge related to that issue.

Destremps said School Committee members did attend this week’s negotiating session.

Both sides have been deadlocked since last October, when the school board abandoned court-ordered mediation. The School Committee has sought nonbinding arbitration, but that has been postponed twice. Union officials have said that the committee’s offer is unacceptable because of how sharply it would boost teachers’ share of their health-care costs.

The last contract expired in August 2007. Teachers worked under court order last year at the same pay rates as in the 2006-07 school year.

With archival reports by Journal staff writer Gina Macris.

mwims@projo.com