The last teachers’ strike in the area was by the Huntley Teachers Association in 2008.
Strike votes are being taken at various schools in Carpentersville Unit School District 300.
Teachers who wish to go on strike seem to be winning.
In preparation, leadership is pointing to Friday, October 19th, as the day the picket lines will go up.
It seems likely that it is not a coincidence that Friday, October 19th is the end of a pay period, the day that pay checks are due.
Funny how the union thinks the public can afford mandatory raises.
And benefits.
Time to get realistic.
And time to put in no strike laws.
How greedy all teachers are.
There should be more unemployed teachers.
Hire people that think about students not bank accounts.
Working 9 months of the year for outrageous salaries and benefits and say that is not enough.
There should be more homeschooling and less teachers.
It’s funny how in a good economy people think teachers aren’t paid enough but in a bad economy we are greedy.
Teachers work 50-60 hours a week for 9.5-10 months a year, then we get 8-10 weeks off.
50 hours a week times 10 months = 2000 hours of work.
40 hours a week times 12 months = 1920 hours of work in a year.
That’s shorting teachers also, they usually work more than 50 hours a week.
There are lots of unemployed teachers also.
Go ahead an homeschool your kids if you think you can do better, we gets lots of them and it’s not good.
We don’t get outrageous salaries in D300 either, you are thinking D155, D214 or D211, there is a reason your taxes are low out here, teachers in D300 are on the low end of the salary scale for the suburbs so stop complaining.
MOST teachers are dedicated, competent, and they work hard. No question.
The TEACHER’S UNION is an aweful organization that is totally in bed with the Democratic Party and this illegitimate relationship is the PRIMARY reason for the economic disaster this state is in. More money today goes for pensions and benefits than to existing teacher’s salaries.
The funny thing: The Teacher’s Union SCREWS the very teachers they claim to “serve”. The Union serves the administrators, the superintendants, and the tenured-teachers VERY well. However, most teachers are young women just out of training who will teach for 3-8 years then leave to raise their own family. These young teachers get screwed…..low pay, minimal benefits, no pension….and these are usually the best, most dedicated teachers.
Note to teachers: Unless the Union is helping you out with overbloated benefits/pension plan, the Union is screwing you. And that’s true for MOST of the teachers
Skeptic, you nailed it! Unions use teachers as peons and just uses them for their union dues.
Pro Teacher, you stated “there is a reason your taxes are low out here”…are you serious? I moved here from another state and property taxes were 1/2 of what they are here and schools make up the majority of our property taxes! How do other states do it? Less patronage (ie – our schools all had a school president and vice president, here there are usually 3 or 4 vice presidents)!
The problem with the school unions in this state is that there is so much corruption in the superintendent/admin level that people just group teachers in there as well. While there are exceptions, the majority of teachers do not make a killing at teaching. Teachers need to stand with the taxpayers and get the unions working for the kids!
I would love to hear that the union is fighting to slightly reduce current pay to hire more teachers and reduce class sizes for the kids…all without raising taxes! That would be for the kids…more pay and better benefits, not so much.
**MOST teachers are dedicated, competent, and they work hard. No question.
The TEACHER’S UNION is an aweful organization**
Ummm… so lets see. Teachers are good, dedicated, competent, and work hard.
But the Teachers Union – an organization made up solely of teachers – is awful.
Got it.
Lets take the CTU strike, for example. People talk about they love teachers, but the Union is AWFUL! But they conveniently forget that over 90% of the teachers supported the strike. And it was the MEMBERS that voted to prolong the strike, not the union leaders.
And if Huntley, or Prairie Grove, teachers decide to go on strike, I can guarantee you that the teachers will be supportive, and it won’t just be “the union.”
But hey – lets not let the facts get in the way.
This is just funny to me because it is all false. As a teacher in this particular district, and having just met with our barganing team last night, I can tell you that we have not taken a strike authorization vote, so that statement is false. Authorization votes typically wouldn’t be done school by school anyways.
The team also stated that they have no timeline, the mediator only schedules one meeting at a time, and progress is being made. So the October 19th is false. However, yes, thats how strikes work. You go out on the day you get paid. Makes sense to me.
As for the greedy comments, the board RiFed 363 of our teachers in the spring of 2011. Those teachers were used as hostages to enusre financial concessions from the membership. We were in favor of returning all 363 RiFed members, therefore, boted to make insurance concessions, take a salary freeze, and give other monetary concessions to give the district the financial cushion it claimed to need due to a projected lack of state funding. The membership gave them 3.6 millions dollars in oncessions, with the understanding that major changes our working conditions would be discussed over the next year before they were implemented. When the 363 teachers were re-instated, so were 4 high school level administrators. Apparently the membership paid for their return as well.
Insurance prices continue to rise, and the board may be forcing the membership to only accept a high deductable HSA in the new contract. However, salary increases haven’t been discussed since 2006. So, in many cases, teachers pay is being decreased year by year. More money is continually taken out of our paycheck, with no pay increase. I’m not so worried about my “bank account”, I’m worried about my family.
Sam, thank you so much for speaking the TRUTH about all of the D300 teachers!
I, as well, am a teacher in the district and have watched my paycheck decrease year by year as I pay more for insurance, but have no pay increase.
Anonymous, it’s funny how other businesses get salary increases and even bonuses but you believe that teachers should get nothing.
Zorro, please homeschool your children because you seem like you would be a nightmare parent.
When my salary is broken down, I am getting paid about $8 an hour to teach 30 kids with no help and that is just for my contractual time.
If you add in the extra time that I am at school before and after the students are there, on the weekends, and all the time I work at home in the evenings my pay would be even less.
That is time that is taken away from my own children to ensure that my students are receiving the best education that I can possibly provide with little to no support from administration.
Jim, if my pay gets reduced any more, I will end up in foreclosure.
Why is it that it all falls on the teachers?
Why is it that administration is not being held accountable?
We have WAY too many administrators in the administration office that are each making six figure salaries.
Let’s also not forget that these administrators, who make two to three times as much as I do, cried and complained when they needed to finally give in and pay the same share of their insurance that the teachers have been paying.
Why is it that there is not enough money in the district budget to ensure that all students have actual desks to sit at and textbooks as resources, but the school board and all administrators received brand new IPads??
I think the truly greedy people here are the administrators!
They want the teachers to just roll over and take yet ANOTHER pay freeze, cram more students in our classrooms without being given any help to ensure that proper learning rather than just crowd control can occur, and expect teachers to show student growth.
Administrators want teachers to teach that bullying is unacceptable, but then turn around and bully the teachers themselves.
They seem to be “do as I say and not as I do.”
It’s such a sad state of events.
I don’t teach in this district but I am a teacher. It hurts when people claim that we are such greedy people and don’t think about the kids.
I would just LOVE to see them spend a day in my shoes with all the crap teachers put up with every day.
The reason we do it is for the kids!
We clearly don’t do it for the money.
That’s the reason we don’t have a good retention rate.
More than 50% of teachers quit within the first five years of teaching because of comments like some made on this blog.
Teachers aren’t treated as professionals and we are sick of it!
We attended college, numerous professional development, and a plethora of trainings just to be the best that we can be for your kids.
We spend hours after school perfecting lesson plans, grading, and helping students.
So don’t you DARE say anything derogatory towards teachers!
We do it ALL for the kids!
Try spending a day in our shoes and learn some respect from these “greedy people”.
I hear a lot of complaining from teachers,
Overworked and underpaid??
Please tell me Who doesn’t feel that way?
Who isn’t working more Hours for the same money or had to take a pay Cut to keep their job?
In this economy Teachers and the rest of the working community Should be thankful we have jobs!