Hartford — Negotiators for the Hartford Education Association and the School Board reached a dramatic, last-minute agreement on a teachers contract earlier this week, just seconds before a fact finder would have entered into the lengthy dispute.

“We literally reached agreement as the fact finder came in the door,” Lori Dickerson, chairwoman of the Hartford School Board and its lead negotiator, said Friday.

Both Dickerson and Cherrie Torrey, lead negotiator for the teachers’ union, declined to release details of the two-year contract, which will be presented to 200 teachers on Monday in anticipation of a vote on Thursday.

Talks began in the fall of 2014 and stalled after both sides declared an impasse in February 2015. The sides agreed in mid-March to renew talks, based on the public’s approval of a $35.8 million budget for the district.

A closed-door session with fact finder Parker Denaco, a Dover, N.H.-based attorney and arbitrator, was scheduled for Tuesday, March 29, but the two sides came together for what Torrey called “a marathon session” on March 24.

The meeting was attended by eight union members, as well as two School Board members, Superintendent Tom DeBalsi, a district attorney and a representative from the district’s human resources department.

During that meeting, Dickerson said, the sides “came very close to a deal, but left at 11:30 p.m. without that deal in hand.”

On Tuesday, the groups convened again at 11 a.m., two hours before Denaco was scheduled to arrive. “Both sides made concessions,” said Torrey.

They signed a memorandum of agreement right at 1 p.m., but it needs to be approved by both the members and the School Board.

“I know the union team felt pleased about the agreement so hopefully the membership will as well,” Dickerson said.

The specific areas of disagreement were not publicly identified, but Torrey said in March that they involved both the financial package, and the language items in the contract, which govern a wide range of benefits and requirements.

In the 2014-15 school year, teachers at Hartford earned $55,373, slightly less than the statewide average of $56,577. For the several years preceding that, they earned more than the statewide average.

Teachers have said publicly that they don’t feel respected by the School Board, while board members have responded that they’re trying to balance competing demands in a difficult budget.

Though the contract is for two years, because the teachers have been working without a contract for nearly a year, it will expire at the end of the 2016-17 school year.

Torrey said more information about the substantive changes in the contract will be released publicly following Thursday’s vote.

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.