District 300 Board Responds to Teachers’ Union

A press release from the District 300 School Board:

BOARD RESPONDS TO TEACHERS UNION IMPASSE

On Monday, November 5, 2012, LEAD 300 declared impasse in collective bargaining.

By definition, the declaration of impasse implies that the teachers union is not moving from their current bargaining position and believes that the parties have exhausted the prospects of reaching an agreement.

The Board of Education and District administration are disappointed that LEAD 300 has reached this conclusion; we believe the parties were making significant progress in the effort to reduce class size and improve teachers’ working environment.

Within seven days after the declaration of impasse, both the Board of Education and LEAD 300 must submit their final offers – including a cost summary – to each other, the mediator, and the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

Seven days after receipt of those final offers, assuming no settlement has been reached, the IELRB will make the final offers public, including the cost summaries, by posting them on its website.

According to the President of the Board of Education, Anne Miller, “The Board is dedicated to negotiating a contract that is good for students, fair for teachers and fiscally responsible to our community. It is our sincere hope that a strike will be averted.

“We are fortunate to have a caring, competent and highly qualified staff.”

Given today’s economic environment, the Board has offered a strong salary and benefit package to its employees with the knowledge that the fiscal strength of the District is in the best interests of its students, its employees and its taxpayers.

The Board will continue to work within the parameters set forth to achieve an agreement with LEAD 300. Updates on progress will be provided on the district website at www.d300.org.

At 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 7, 2012, the Board forwarded its final offer to LEAD 300.

Major components of the Board’s package proposal include

  • salary, insurance, retirement, and extra pay;
  • elementary class size;
  • high school schedule and teacher load;
  • issues related to education services (special education);
  • teacher plan time;
  • teacher arrival and departure time; and
  • other issues related to working conditions.

Joe Stevens

A synopsis of the full Board proposal is available on the district website at www.d300.org.

According to Board of Education Spokesperson, Joe Stevens, “We believe we were making good progress to address the union’s top priorities including class size and working conditions. Now that the union has declared impasse, we are waiting to receive their final proposal to resume future negotiations.”


Comments

District 300 Board Responds to Teachers’ Union — 10 Comments

  1. The Board proposes phasing out the end or career salary increases.

    Phasing out?

    It should have never have been there in the first place.

    The average working stiff doesn’t get a 6% end of career salary increase, each of the last for years of their career.

    It should have been terminated immediately with no phase-out.

    Those end of career salary increases are one of the most egregious abuses of taxpayer money ever and only after Madigan is proposing pushing the State’s “fair share on behalf of the employee” contribution to the local school districts, has the practice been phased out.

    It indicates what puppets or in cahoots many school board members have been with the Administration and teachers unions, rather then the majority of the taxpayers outside those special interest groups.
    Here’s the Board’s proposed phase out.

    Retirement Proposal:

    It is common knowledge that the General Assembly is considering legislation that would shift the State’s required contributions to the teachers’ pension system to local school districts, or penalize local school districts for any end of career salary increases.

    The Board believes that end-of-service retirement enhancements need to be phased out.

    Therefore, the Board has proposed that the current retirement plan’s end-of-career salary increases be phased out during the three years of this agreement and that the post-retirement benefit be reduced.

    This allows teachers at or near retirement age to have one final opportunity to take advantage of end of career salary increases.

    School Year

    Proposed change to end-of-career salary increases

    2012-2013: 6% increase over their prior year’s base salary for four years
    2013-2014: 3% increase over their prior year’s base salary for four years
    2014-2015: 3% increase over their prior year’s base salary for four years

    At the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, new retirees will no longer be eligible for an end-of-career salary increase.

  2. Should have been “fair share on behalf of the school district”….

  3. Look at this telling sentence from above.

    “This allows teachers at or near retirement age to have one final opportunity to take advantage of end of career salary increases.”

    Excuse me?

    …”one final opportunity to take advantage of end of career salary increases.”
    One final opportunity to take advantage of citizens outside that special interest group?

    Who thinks like that?

    If the teacher union doesn’t get what it wants they go kicking and screaming to the board.

    Most the taxpayers haven’t a clue as to what is proposed, and even if they do know, don’t go kicking and screaming to the Board.

    Plus, if the teachers get the end of career salary increase, the administrators do too, and so they both keep quiet, and advocate to the board that other districts are doing this, and that’s how the rip-off perpetuated.

    The only way to fight public sector unions is for citizens outside those special interest groups to organize and do their own kicking and screaming to the board, and that has not happened.

    Nor is there any indication it will happen.

    About all you see is an article in the press once every blue moon, at which the teacher unions whip up the rhetoric they are being “attacked.”

    The teachers, administrators, and board members are the ones financially attacking and plundering citizens outside of those special interest groups.

    And the best part?

    The end of career salary increases increases pensions which are not properly funded to begin with after 38 years of pension spiking legislation.

    It’s complete insanity.

  4. Hard to believe that the union actually turned this down!!

    I hope their IEA advisors didn’t misread the tea leaves and overreach on getting for more blood from the turnip.

    This is a very lucrative package and if I were the board, I’d wait for the strike they so badly want to take, and offer a total cut of the retirement sixes, rather than a weening.

    If it were about students, they’d take the money running.

  5. Dear community,

    I am writing to you as an involved and informed student of district 300.

    As I’m sure you all know, newspapers, especially blogs, are sometimes inadvertently biased. Here are facts on the new contract proposal.

    Please keep in mind that I am here, as a high school student, simply to inform you of what we as students believe based on the facts listed below.

    Also, please feel free to look up the salary of any teacher in the district.

    It is all public knowledge and will clear some misconceptions there.

    No teacher goes into the job for the money.

    They go into it for US. Thank you for your time.

    Tonight, LEAD 300 (the teacher’s union of district 300) and the school board were supposed to meet to continue negotiations. The board refused to meet, citing the idea that the teacher’s declared impasse. The board put out their final offer at 11:00 this morning. You can find the details here. http://www.d300.org/document/36708

    This offer includes:

    -Lowering of cap on class sizes of kindergarten through fifth grade
    -A step salary increase of 2% for teachers with masters, plus an increase for this year of .75% overall, and another for the 2014-2015 school year of .5%.
    -A nine-period day at the high school level.
    -Other promises about relationships between admin and staff.
    -Promises about special education.

    Now we, as concerned students of D300, do NOT believe this to be a “fair and equitable contract”.

    Here are the facts:

    
The district overestimated the cost of reducing class sizes.

    According to LEAD 300, only -12 teachers are needed to cut classes to the sizes of those caps.

    There is a possibility that next years’ enrollment will be larger, but even that would not require the number of teachers the district said it would.

    Somewhere in there is purposeful misleading and dishonesty.

    -The step salary increase that the district is promising is the same as teacher’s already have. That means the district really only offered a .75% increase, for this year only. We all know our teachers our better than that. We need to attract and retain quality teachers in the district, and this is not how quality teachers are paid.

    -The “promises” made by the district are vague and unfounded. Many of us have seen firsthand the bullying of teachers by administration.

    -We take issue with the fact that over the past few years, salaries of admin have increased and positions have been added. This adds up to a total of six million dollars. Otherwise known as enough money to pay the 117 teachers that were laid off and forced huge class sizes in the district.

  6. For the job they do I think teachers and admin are by far overpaid.

    No where in business can you fail over and over again or give a mediocre performance and get a raise.

    NO WHERE.

    And to have 53% of the pension paid for by the tax payer.

    No way.

    As a tax payer I am sick and tired of being held hostage by the teachers union..

    I say Charter Schools or fire them all, get rid of the Unions and start all over.

    I am sick and tired of children being deprived of services and a good education by the greed of teachers and admin.

    Let that Randy Weingarten come to McHenry County..I would love to have a debate with her.

    We need huge change putting the parents back in charge of their children education.

    The school bullys have got to go.

  7. Teachers are not failing. Schools are not failing.

    The way that the government asks our schools to operate, without the proper funds, leads to “failure”.

    Education should absolutely be in the hands of the the people who go to college and receive training to do exactly that job.

    Teachers deserve to be paid for the degrees they have and the job they are doing.

    ducating our students is one of the most important jobs this country has. We should start respecting our teachers as such.

    As a student, I am sick of a culture that values, say, Verizon salesmen over my teachers. (Yes, the average Verizon salesman makes a higher salary than my teachers).

    So let the professionals do their job, please.

    Oh, and teachers in Illinois pay 6.4% of their salary into their pensions.

    Comparable to social security, which is paid at a rate of 6.2%.

    Education needs to come first.

  8. I agree totally with every word Cynthia Allen Schenk has stated above.

    I wish she could get a group of residents, with like minds, together to further discuss this subject and possibly cause some change.

    I personally have never paid attention to any local government but am beginning to pay attention.

    The children are the ones being over looked, tax payers are being held hostage and parents are being bullied.

    I agree that charter schools are the answer and if a good plan could be set up, people were serious enough, this might the push back on the teacher’s union that we need.

    We will keep being held hostage year after year if residents do not have an alternet plan.

    Thank you Cynthia for your wise comments.

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