15
Talks
are expected to resume Saturday between negotiators for striking Lake Forest
High School teachers and the school board — but strike or no strike, classes
are resuming on Monday.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/09/15/strike-notwithstanding-school-to-open-in-lake-forest-monday/
As
pointed out by Steve Sadin in this morning’s PATCH
article, the most recent data issued by the Illinois State Board of Education
website (ISBE) indicates that Lake Forest High School teachers are already the
highest paid on the North Shore, edging out Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools
by $421 a year. The average annual teacher salary at LFHS is $106,457.
Educators at Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools earn an average of
$106.036 per year. New Trier Township
High Schools comes in at $103,670; Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South High
Schools at $100,401; and Stevenson High School at $97,531.
An
impasse has been reached because District 115 Board wisely refused to meet the
demands of a proposal presented by the Lake Forest Education Association on
July 19, which calls for a three-year contract with an average annual increase
in compensation (salary and benefits) of 6.7 percent. The board offered a compensation package of
3.6 percent, which is very generous particularly given the not-so-stellar
economy. And it was not unreasonable of
the board to further request that teachers pay some of their family health care
premiums.
In
a published LF Patch article on Friday, August 11, “LFHS Teachers Declare
Impasse, Strike Possible,” Richard Moore, Lake Forest Education Association teachers’
union President, had this to say: “I’m
teacher. I just want to teach. I left the business world because I want to
help raise the next generation.”
Moore
also insisted that the contract must be “fair and equitable.”
Perhaps
Richard Moore should have stayed in the business world? He did make a respectable base salary of
$105.344 during the 2011-2012 school year. This doesn’t include all the other perks
Richard might have received, including healthcare, which his base salary does
not reflect.
Not
bad considering all the days off throughout the school year, including winter
and spring breaks, a Christmas break, and at least eight weeks of vacation time
during the summer! Such time off is not
available in the business world!
For
many local residents teacher salaries have gotten to be over generous at LFHS,
with pensions now reaching the level of what teachers earn in their final year
of teaching within ten years after they retire.
Competition
now seems to rule in salary negotiations.
Just as schools compete with one another to have winning sports teams,
schools are now competing to offer the highest salaries through teacher union
negotiations. Teacher unions will
strongly suggest that teachers will go elsewhere if their pay is not equal or
better than those offered in a neighboring school district.
http://www.familytaxpayers.org/2012/08/15/are-lfhs-teachers-greedy-or-do-they-just-have-a-tin-ear/
Before
negotiations were ended by the district yesterday afternoon, the Lake Forest
Education Association (LFEA) asked the mediator to inform the District 115
Board of Education (BOE) that we would be ready to continue negotiations at 10
AM on Saturday. At 10 AM this morning, the LFEA negotiating team entered
district headquarters hoping to find the BOE negotiating team. Instead, the BOE
left a note on the table for the LFEA team to read. Their note declared that
yesterday’s “…last, best offer” was their final offer and demanded a last, best
offer from us.
According
to Tom Gigiano, the lead negotiator for the LFEA,
“This is not the collective bargaining process and does not lead to productive
compromise. The LFEA’s last, best offer is for us to be at the negotiating
table together to find common ground, complete this process, and get our
teachers and kids back where they belong, in the classroom together.”
The
entire text of the BOE’s message is as follows:
LFEA
Team:
The
doors have been left open at the front. If you have a last, best for the board,
please contact Mike Hernandez (D-115 attorney). The board team is prepared to
meet at any time and respond to your last, best offer.
http://gazebonews.com/2012/09/15/lake-forest-teachers-union-where-is-the-board-of-ed/
These
oppressed members of the proletariat average $106,500 a year in salary for
their 9 month gigs and that compares pretty well with the already very generous
Illinois average teacher salary of $65,000.
But
these oppressed members of the exploited working class - in what is perhaps the most posh educational
setting in Illinois still aren't satisfied.
Despite
the continued national and statewide economic malaise (believe it or not there
have been foreclosures even in Lake Forest) these piggies
are still holding out for raises of 5 to 6.5 percent per year.
http://chicagolampoon.blogspot.com/2012/09/oppressed-proletariat-of-lake-forest.html
The
School Board and the LFEA met for nearly 7 and a half hours
on Thursday night, but they failed to come to a conclusive agreement.
http://lakeforest.patch.com/articles/the-lfhs-teacher-s-strike-the-story-so-far
Lake
Forest High School administrators have devised an unusual plan for dealing with
a walkout by their teachers: reopen school without them.
Three
days into a teachers strike, the district announced Friday that students will
be expected to show up Monday for an "all-day educational program"
that will be provided by administrators, with the help of a group of hastily
recruited and background-checked community volunteers.
Such
moves are not unheard of in the private sector, where employers might hire replacement
workers or rely on managers to keep operations humming during labor strikes.
But Lake Forest's plan is uncommon for a public school district, for reasons
that range from educational to practical to political, observers say.
While
the local teachers union would not comment on the district's plan, an Illinois
Education Association spokesman was dubious.
"The
reason it never happens is that it's a sham to suggest that education is taking
place under these circumstances," spokesman Charles McBarron
said. "Most districts aren't willing to engage in that."
McBarron said he's never heard of a
district trying to open schools during a strike using volunteers and
administrators.
Administrators
in the suburban Round Lake school district hired substitutes to get schools
open six weeks into an eight-week teachers strike in 1994 (some teachers also
crossed the picket line). In the mid-1980s, the tiny district in downstate
Homer, near Champaign, brought in subs 11 days into a strike that ground on for
eight months.
Roycealee Wood, superintendent of the
Lake County Regional Office of Education, said she would be at the school
Monday to judge whether the day's education is up to snuff. Lake Forest must
offer five hours of instruction in the core subjects of English, science, math
and social studies, and at least half of its students must be in attendance,
she said.
"We
have to make sure all those teachers are certified, not volunteers, if they
want to count it as a day," Wood said. "They have to give me a list
of all these people so we can check our records."
As
for Lake Forest's murky plan for Monday, attorney James Bartley, a school law
specialist with the Chicago firm of Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins, said a
district might try to claim it offered a legal school day even if most
classrooms were staffed by volunteers.
State
regulations say people without teaching certificates can't perform tasks
requiring "instructional judgment." But if an administrator with a
certificate were to oversee a class — similar to a teacher bringing in a guest
lecturer — a district could assert it was operating within the law, Bartley
said.
Lake
Forest's teachers walkout prompted the cancellation of
Friday night's football game against Lake Zurich High School. Matt Troha of the Illinois High School Association said the
school won't be allowed into any other competitions as long as the strike
persists.
That
annoyed six Lake Forest football players who launched a satiric "strike
against the strike" Friday, showing up near the teachers' picket line with
signs bearing slogans such as, "I have a sign."
The
players said they didn't know what they'd be doing in the classroom when school
reopens Monday, but they weren't expecting anything rigorous.
It
could be a different story on the picket line. Asked what the striking teachers
would do when the doors open, union spokesman Chuck Gress
said: "The atmosphere on Monday is going to take a different tone."
Union
spokesman Chuck Gress criticized the board's tactics,
calling them inconsistent with the collective bargaining process.
“We
are negotiating with ourselves, in a sense," he said. “Our last best offer
is for them to return to the bargaining table and finish contract negotiations
so that we teachers can get back to what we do best and that is the teaching of
our students.”