Now that it has been approved by both sides, the contract, which will apply retroactively to this past year, will be valid until 2002.

When a tentative agreement on the contract was reached in late February, O'Sullivan praised Anthony D. Galluccio, who had been elected mayor in the middle of the talks, as the "driving force" in the final marathon negotiating sessions.

O'Sullivan said then that the contract was a "fair and equitable" settlement.

Now, however, he says the vote to ratify the contract was a "referendum on education in Cambridge" that showed teachers feel "dispirited, estranged and undervalued."

O'Sullivan says he does not think the 250-to-249 vote, which was counted four times, reflected dissatisfaction with the performance of the union's bargaining team, which included himself.

He says union members objected in particular to the salary increase in the contract's first year--just two percent--compared to three percent the second year and four percent the third year.

He says teachers also felt provisions to include special education students in regular education classrooms did not do enough to spread out those students evenly among schools.