The following is a description of the District 300 teachers’ contract which I received from Joe Stevens today:
Teachers’ contract approved last night—— A one year agreement
- Hard salary freeze
- Changes to insurance benefits which trigger all other labor groups to match
- Elimination of tuition re-imbursement
- Change in pay (from $32 per hour to $9 per hour) for lunch room supervision and bus duty
- Increase in number of students to trigger overload pay
- No changes to class sizes
- Electronic deposit of pay checks now required
- Formation of a collaborative council with teachers and administration to allow for teacher input for major restructuring changes
- Some language changes minor in nature
- Right to move non-tenured teachers to where they are most needed
- No change to the students schedule for this coming year
- All 363 teachers laid off on March 28th are recalled
Also approved last night, salary freeze for all administrative positions for the second year in a row.
Approximately $3.6 million coming from teachers, the rest from the insurance changes for all labor groups and the salary freeze on all administrators for a total savings approaching $5.2 which was the original goal.
I asked if the salary freeze includes no step increases.
“Yes it does,” Stevens replied.
“If a teacher gets qualified into a higher pay teacher degree, does the teacher get a higher pay?” I asked.
“Currently that can happen as the qualifications are earned, as of July movement will limited to only once per year,” Stevens answered.
It is a huge abuse for teachers to not put in an extra minute in the morning but get paid an extra $9 / hour when this is only part of their regular morning work day.
“You may want to know”…remember it’s for the kids! Oh wait, they are taking money that can go to programs for the kids…remember it’s for the teachers!
So teachers can earn one Lane Salary Increase (for college credits) per year.
A Lane Increase for those unaware is when teachers receive a salary increase for earning a specified number of college credits.
So teachers can receive a salary increase even though the District states “Hard Salary Freeze”.
I assume “Hard Salary Freeze” means the cells in the Salary Schedule will not be increased.
So the Board did get several concessions from the union, but I would argue in this miserable economy there should be no salary increases for any reason period.
That’s a hard concept for teachers to accept.
How many jobs outside of Education World offer an automatic salary increase for earning a specified number of college credits.
Outside of Education World job performance is the primary criteria for increased pay. College credits and degrees are simply a consideration factor or requirement.
Also note the words “as of July movement will limited to only once per year.”
That means previously teachers were able to earn up to two salary increases per year, for earning a specified number of college credits.
How many jobs outside of Education World were providing employees with two salary increases per year? With job performance being zero criteria for the salary increases, you just had to stay on the job and earn college credits.