McHenry County Blog

A press release from the Huntley School Board:

Teacher Negotiations Update from the Board of Education of Consolidated School District 158

ALGONQUIN, IL – The District 158 Board of Education (Board) has received notice that the Huntley Education Association (HEA) has declared impasse.

The Board believes that both sides want to reach a compromise that is beneficial for the staff, students, and taxpayers of District 158.

Over the summer, both sides worked diligently to finalize a new contract. Almost all of the language issues were resolved in a mutually agreeable manner.

The remaining issues are primarily compensation.

The Board reached a tentative agreement with the HEA bargaining team on September 5, 2012.

This agreement was not ratified by the membership.

At a subsequent bargaining session, the Board modified this agreement in an effort to meet the needs the bargaining team expressed.

Both sides agreed to make every effort to get this proposal ratified by their respective members.

This proposal also ultimately failed to be ratified by the HEA membership.

The Board team looks forward to meeting with the HEA on the evening of November 13, and continuing work towards agreement and ratification of a contract.

Teachers carrying picket signs on Haligus Road during the last strike in the Huntley School District.

Various news sources are reporting the Huntley Education Association has passed a strike vote.

Huntley makes the third McHenry County school district where teachers felt the need to take the most extreme measure allowed by law.

The other two:

• Prairie Grove Elementary District, which stuck for one day last Friday.
• Carpentersville District 300, which covers most of Algonquin and Lake in the Hills.

In 2008, the Huntley Education Association hit the streets with picket signs.

District 158 teachers have rejected the contract terms offered by the District 158 School Board.

Here’s what’s in a joint Huntley Education Association-School Board press release:

Negotiation Update from District 158 Board of Education and Huntley Education Association

ALGONQUIN, IL – Members of the Huntley Education Association and the Board of Education’s negotiating teams tentatively agreed on a contract on September 5, 2012.

On September 10, 2012, members of the Huntley Education Association met to vote on the tentative agreement.  In that meeting, the membership rejected the agreement.

At this time, the Board of Education and the Huntley Education Association are in communication and continue working together in an effort to conclude the negotiation process.

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At this point in the negotiations last time around, the School Board made the terms of the contract public.

Perhaps the Board will do that again.

A press release from Huntley School District 158 and its teachers’ union:

A Joint Press Release from the Board of Education of Consolidated School District 158 and the Huntley Education Association

Teachers will be on the job at Heineman Middle and other District 158 Schools even though they do not have a new contract.

ALGONQUIN, IL – The District 158 administration and the Huntley Education Association (HEA) negotiation team have met regularly throughout the summer for the purpose of working toward a contract agreement with the HEA.

The parties, including representatives of the Board of Education, last met on Thursday, August 9, 2012.

At the end of this meeting, both sides have agreed that our next best step is to work through a mediator.

Although D158 teachers will be starting the year without a new contract, all parties remain committed to seeing this through without affecting the school year or students.

In what is labeled a “Joint Press Release,” the Huntley School Board and teachers union announce agreement has been reached on a one-year teachers’ contract.

District 158 teachers will not be walking picket lines this year.

Algonquin, IL – After a collaborative and constructive process, the Board of Education of Consolidated School District 158 and the Huntley Education Association have come to a tentative agreement on a contract for 2011-2012. Contract language is now being finalized.

Both sides understand the current economic reality facing the District, and the agreement is within the constraints of the tentative budget that the Board approved in June.

Both sides have agreed to a “hard freeze” contract that does not add additional total compensation over the 2010-2011 year.

= = = = =
The First Electric Newspaper asks the relevant question concerning what a “hard freeze” means. Here’s what Pete Gonigan discovered:

“[Tony] Quagliano told FEN the tentative terms don’t actually freeze the last contract’s steps and lanes by which teachers can increase their salaries.

“They’ve been adjusted, he said, so they’ll result in ‘no net increase’ in total expenditures.”

Huntley School Board President certainly has an interest in the legislative process.

Just look at the agenda for the District 158 Committee of the Whole meeting coming up June 9th:

Skala is the Chairman of the Legislative Committee and giving a report on June 9th.

Of course, the newly-reconfigured 66th District in which he lives has an incumbent–Mike Tryon.

Tryon’s political base has been split by the Illinois Democrats’ reapportionment map. He lives in the northernmost precinct in the district, just south of my precinct, which abuts the South Shore of Crystal Lake (the lake).

Mike Skala

While the 66th District has 67% of Republican primary voters, the rest are in Kane County.

The district in which my Algonquin 7 precinct is the southernmost precinct, on the other hand, has almost all of its residents in McHenry County. It does dip enough into Lake County to reach JoAnn Osmond’s home in Antioch, however.

Osmond has not decided whether she will run in the district whose number she now represents or the McHenry County-dominated one.

Tryon is considering whether he and his wife should downsize from their Four Colonies home into something smaller located in the district in which Osmond lives.

If Tryon does decide to move, that would leave the 66th House District empty.

Being an elected official in the governmental body that probably has more constituents than any other located in that part of McHenry County, Skala would seem to be well-positioned to run for State Representative.

After being narrowly defeated for school board when he was last President by Aileen Seedorf and his ally Jim Carlin, Skala was reappointed to the board when Carlin resigned about six months into his term.

In the next election, Skala then matched himself against arch-foe Larry Snow and beat Snow. The campaign saw Tryon endorse Skala and was akin to a state rep. campaign in intensity. He even had the same campaign manager that Tryon used.

Skala has been a large contributor to Tryon’s campaign war chest and participates in a now annual fish boil fund raiser for Tryon in Huntley.

So, if Tryon decided to run in the northern district, his blessing would undoubtedly be bestowed upon Skala.

No other possible candidates for the lower House have been brought to my attention should Tryon abdicate the seat, but, if one should arise, Tryon’s school board leadership could cut both ways.

Skala was one of those who pushed for the school district tax rate hike and, while apparently legal, I’m told he voted for the teachers’ contract before the current one, even though his wife teaches French at Huntley High School.

His wife is a former Co-President of the Huntley Education Association. That would mean to me that teachers would be favorably inclined to support Skala throughout the district, a nice geographically spread base.

When he was Minority Leader, Lee Daniels was known for recruiting those with school board or school administration backgrounds.   They were called “IEA Republicans.”

The Friend of McHenry County Blog did have a camera in the car, but did report that teachers were picketing in front of Huntley High School today.

Teachers picketed while on strike at the Harmony Road Campus.

Pictures perhaps the next time such an event occurs someone will send me a photo.

These comments by Huntley School District Superintendent John Burkey in the First Electric Newspaper stirred my memory:

Supt. John Burkey tells union leaders that ratification will be delayed.

“Last year I was amazed that we avoided it,” said Supt. John Burkey.

“This year it just caught up with us.”

He slammed a three-year union contract now ending that he said included a more than 5 percent raise this year “while everyone else only got 1.7 percent.”

So I asked a participant with a long memory, a member of the board negotiating team in fact, Larry Snow, what he remember about how contract negotiations went before and during the Huntley Education Association’s strike.

Here is his reply:

Larry Snow

“The 158 board voted on a last, best and final offer that had teachers’ salaries for years 2 and 3 determined by a cost of living increase formula.

“With Supt. John Burkey’s nod of approval, board members Tony Quagliano, Kevin Gentry and Kim Skaja voted to reverse the board’s vote, as Board President Shawn Green literally was a no-show at the final negotiation meetings.

“This made it a 3 – 2 vote in caucus to toss aside a decision to have teachers’ salaries in years 2 and 3 track a cost of living index.

“The union didn’t care that overspending might cause future deficits and cause teachers to be laid off in the future.

“Huntley teachers should only look to their own union officials for striking, now causing deficits and teacher layoffs.

“Teacher greed means teachers who aren’t tenured are the ones that are laid off and they are not a union vote majority.”

Want some history?

Here it is:

• Part 1 – Huntley Teachers’ Proposal: From Surplus to Deficit
• Part 2 – Huntley Teachers’ Proposal: From Surplus to Deficit
• Part 3 – Huntley Teachers’ Proposal: From Surplus to Deficit

Huntley Education Association members attend a school board member.

For years Huntley teachers have wanted guaranteed maximum raises if they decide to plan on taking early retirement or retirement that is officially planned years ahead of time.

Their union was asking for a guaranteed 6% increase for each of the last four years before retirement.

This sounds like a small amount of money until one thinks through the financial implications.

If you are have to pay an extra 3% in salary to teachers who are already in a top pay category, then based on say $80,000 a year in salary and stipends, this amounts to an extra $2,400.

The money adds up because it is for four years of teachers, for each teacher.  Four years of teachers is easily much more than ten percent of your total teachers seeing how a low percentage of teachers are retiring with forty years of teaching experience.

If you have 600 teachers (Huntley has well over 600 certified staff) four years of teachers can run more than 70 teachers when you have a not too young or not too old workforce.

That $2,400 example of more direct pay per year compounds higher each year.  It also encourages early retirement, which costs districts more money in early retirement TRS pension costs they must pay to the state.  Finally, it encourages a district’s most experienced teachers to retire sooner.

What seemingly can be made to look like thousands of dollars can end up being hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional costs each year.  Such costs, of course, take away from other educational resources, which could be used to help student learning.

Unless you believe there is a limitless pool of money.

In Cary District 26, the extra money given away to teachers upon retiring is remarkable.

One hiding striking teacher, another amused at her shyness.

In District 26’s contract its teachers get a lump sum, additional payment of $20,000 when they retire early.  When this makes fiscal sense in a school board, one shouldn’t be surprised if such a district is broke or likely headed in that direction.

Huntley can’t afford hundreds of thousands of dollars being sucked into something that doesn’t help one child learn anything.

No one in the private sector gets guaranteed higher raises for four years before retirement.

The Huntley School Board decided not to lay off any teachers this year.

In return, the Huntley teachers expressed their gratitude with a “we want more money under the current contract” request.

It doesn’t have to make sense in the real world. You’re in school world.

Huntley has one of the largest step increase–3 ½%–in any teachers contract in the state.

If you know of one that’s higher for a surrounding district, please let me know.

What’s a step increase?

A step increase is an automatic pay hike because a teacher has been on the payroll an additional year.

“Greed is good,” was a line from the movie “Wall Street” spoken by actor Michael Douglas.

The image of this Springfield hot tub tornado was too good to pass up.

An excellent deal granting raises over a three-period of 5% per year, stable employment and excellent working conditions apparently aren’t good enough for Huntley teachers.

When greed sucks money away from educational resources that can help students learn, it doesn’t look like it’s good public policy.

Of course, if no one knows about it, the participants can get away with it with impunity.

Springfield is never going to take away teachers union’s right to strike in Illinois when Democrats can block commons sense reforms by being in control.

Maybe Republican John O’Neill will point out Democrat Jack Franks’ automatic pro-union vote whenever the teachers unions need one.

Somehow this is consistent with Franks’ saying he is a conservative.

One may think there’s nothing conservative about supporting the teachers unions’ right to strike in Illinois, when the state is teetering on bankruptcy.

It may also defy common sense.

O’Neill is a member of the District 15 school board and may understand the implications.

Massachusetts is an equal to Illinois (at least) in liberalism, and also unionism.

It has a better public education system and doesn’t allow its teachers to strike.

How credible is it for a school district to have two meetings with its teachers union and no one can officially remember when either one was?

Huntley’s answer was it can’t recall.

Administration does recall that it wasn’t at the district’s offices.  Seems a bit odd not to have it at the administration building unless you don’t want other people to see you’re having a meeting or who else is actually in attendance.

There are Open Meeting Act prohibitions against too many board members attending.

If you believe the district’s response below, four people meeting together to discuss union business was “informal.”

This is probably code for not informing the entire board, including Aileen Seedorf, what was going on.

Kevin Gentry

Aileen Seedorf

You see, Kevin Gentry and Aileen Seedorf were representing the district when they met with the teachers union for months after the current teachers’ contract was signed.

Obviously Gentry didn’t want Seedorf along to witness or listen into whatever side deal he was offering or discussions he had with the teachers union.

Apparently four individuals attended, one board member and three teachers, and no one wrote down anywhere when either meeting was.

Apparently there wasn’t any email or text messages to set up or confirm either meeting date.

Apparently Supt. John Burkey can’t remember when the meetings were, if he discussed the results with Gentry.

If you believe the district’s response Gentry met with three teacher union officials all by himself.  If Gentry took notes of what was said at the meeting you have to believe he forgot to put a date on any notes.  You also have to believe Supt. Burkey’s administrative assistant made no note in her calendar of when either meeting was held.

You can ask the Huntley district for meeting dates, and as you can see from the letter below, the district officially can’t recall. I wonder why all of the teachers can’t recall.  Or did the district not bother to ask their teacher employees for the information that’s within their control?

Here’s what I requested:

“Under the Freedom of Information Act, I request the dates of meetings held with the Huntley Educational Association’s bargaining agent in attendance after September 30, 2009 to present.”

This is District 158′s reply:

“This letter is in response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of June 7, 2010 in which you requested, ‘Subject:  Req for HEA Bargaining Dates Since 9-30-09, I request the dates of meetings held with the Huntley Educational Association’s bargaining agent in attendance after September 30, 2009 to present.’

Here are three Huntley teachers holding up signs for those attending a pre-strike informational picket.

“Board of Education President, Mr. Kevin Gentry attended two informal meetings held outside of the district offices, each with Ms. (Kim) Aschenbach, Ms. (Julie) Lutter and Ms. (Christine) Laird in attendance. Unfortunately, he is unable to recall the dates of the meetings.”