20
In
a brief online statement, the Lake Forest High School Board of Education and
the Lake Forest Education Association announced they had agreed on a four-year
contract. No details were given.
http://www.nwherald.com/2012/09/19/chicago-areas-other-teachers-strike-over/a9vcbms/
The
LFEA would like to thank everyone for their support during this trying time.
All of what happened is regrettable and could have been prevented. We hope to
work together to rebuild these bridges so this never happens again.
First,
we’d like to thank our students for being great. You are the reason we love our
jobs. We’d also like to send a special shout-out to the student volunteers who
helped organize the school days on Monday and Tuesday. They worked very
hard–voluntarily–to help provide programming for their classmates. Their
dedication to LFHS is a testament to the quality of students we have here.
We
also thank all of the students and parents who had the courage to speak up and
tell their stories. Finally, we want to thank the support staff, from
secretaries and custodians to paraprofessionals and assistants, for working
hard during the last week to keep the building running.
We
are very happy to be back in the classroom.
http://lakeforestteachers.com/2012/09/20/thank-you/
Meanwhile,
the Lake County regional schools chief, Roycealee
Wood, confirmed that two days of classes held at the school while the teachers
were on strike will not be counted as legal attendance days.
The
district's 150 teachers walked out Sept. 12 after failing to reach a deal with
the district over salaries and benefits. But Lake Forest High School District
115 officials reopened school Monday and Tuesday, using a combination of
administrators, volunteers and substitutes to provide educational content.
While
many students and parents said they appreciated the district's efforts, they
were mixed in their opinions about the programming.
"It
would be a real stretch to say they were doing instruction," said Wood,
who also was quick to praise the district for its efforts. "They were
having a good community activity and keeping the kids active off the
streets."
But
Wood said she had concerns that she shared with Lake Forest administrators
Monday, saying that the programs were engaging but did not teach core subjects
of English, math, science and social studies.
"What
they were doing is what I would call educational awareness," Wood said.
For example, she said students observed a presentation on animals and birds in
a lecture room. "But it wasn't instruction. They weren't teaching them how
to use the computer or working with birds, but just general things in those
areas."
21
Illinois
State Board of Education spokeswoman Mary Fergus said Friday a ruling by State
Superintendent of Schools Chris Koch had not yet been made.
Fergus
said Koch “will be talking with the district and giving them the official
determination within the next week.”
Should
the two days not be counted, it will be up to the district to decide how those
days would be made up, she said.
“That’s
something that’s determined at a local level,” she said.
By
law, school must be in session 180 calendar days.
http://lakeforest.suntimes.com/news/15291192-418/no-details-yet-on-lake-forest-contract.html
22
On
recent radio and TV news clips, leaders of teachers’ strikes in Chicago and
Lake Forest claim these strikes are for the benefit of the students.
If
students were really their first priority, they would have been in class
teaching, while union leaders continued to negotiate with the school boards.
Public
pension obligations have bloated state budgets to the point that some states
may go completely broke within a few years. Politicians have gone along with
this scheme, for union votes. How about someone looking out
for taxpayers for a change. This is the kind of change I would vote for.
http://www.nwherald.com/2012/09/20/for-union-votes/av9wl5/
The
Bottom Line: Lake Forest was on a mission after being forced to forfeit last
week’s game against Lake Zurich due to the teacher’s strike. They poured it on
early and often against the hapless Zee-Bees. The decisive victory won’t make
up for the Lake Zurich loss, but it was a memorable homecoming at Varsity
Field.
23
The
Lake Forest High School District teachers strike has ended; however, the bitter
taste remains. LFEA (The teachers union) behavior has been instructive and
revealing. The first surprise revelation is the LFEA affiliation with the State
and National Trade Unions, the IEA and the NEA. That revelation was rather
puzzling and most unbecoming of professionals. Professionalism and trade union
membership are inconsistent and incompatible beliefs. Teaming up with Trade
Unions at the state and national level doesn’t square with District 115, LFHS
parents, students and the community. Does the recent Wisconsin protest of
Governor Scott Walker’s reform agenda, by the militant teachers
union leadership who hired goons from the NEA’s rent a thug department,
resemble the sort of collaboration we would want our teachers to have?
The
second impression one gains from the opening position of the union, is that of
delusional thinking in the bubble of Lake Forest which is a quantum disconnect
from the prevailing universe of teacher compensation and benefits. As the
teachers must know, the State of Illinois is the keeper and provider of the
teachers’ pension plan. Reliance on safekeeping by the State as the source or
retirement funding, should be the cause of far more
anxiety than hard line bargaining from the Board of Education. The Wall Street Journal, on Saturday
September 21st, 2012, posted a sobering article about a looming government
employee pension funding crisis, nearly everywhere. In that category, Illinois
leads the pack for irresponsibility, ineptitude and deception in the (mis) management of various pension funds, estimated to have
shortfalls of $80 Billion to $200 Billion. While this is going on down state
and out of sight, the Lake Forest Teachers will be impacted when their pension
fund finally defaults from lack of cash. There are many contributors to the
crisis, but surely the politicians, so thoroughly controlled by the teacher’s
union puppeteers, are in front of the parade. That is the same union with which
the LFEA is associated.
The
third and likely the most potentially long term corrosive effect of this
strike, is the division among the teachers about the wisdom and impact of a
strike. There are devoted and dedicated LFHS teachers, many in number, whose
better instincts know a strike is disruptive to the students, damaging to their
personal and professional reputation and will harm the District. Then there are
those for whom teaching is a job and a pay check, and sadly, there are more than enough in that category. Among the latter
group, there is indifference toward the mission. The conflict between these
very different attitudes will inevitably clash, both among the teachers and the
administration. Such conflicts will not improve the quality of education or experiences
at LFHS. The LFEA, in order to insure an outcome they preferred, employed a
classic union steamrolling tactic and called for a voice vote to strike. That
move brought irresistible peer pressure and created the herd mentality. A
secret ballot would have been fair to all and very likely produced a different
outcome.
Teachers,
if you want to be treated like the professionals you want to be, and
compensated handsomely by D 115 for being so, please act with the dignity that
distinction calls for, and attend to the responsibilities for which you have
been appointed. Then, disassociate from “Big Union”, and in the future, do what
is in your professional DNA, not what some union activists want you to do.
Al
Boese, Lake Bluff
24
According
to Illinois administrative code, a school day must include language arts,
science, math and history for all grade levels for it to be counted as a legal
school day.
The
district did meet two of three conditions for a legal school day, Fergus said.
Those conditions were that at least 50 percent of the district’s students
attended and the teachers hold certificates that are registered with the
regional superintendent.
The
Lake Forest Education Association members heard the highlights of the four-year
contract after school Thursday from their negotiating team, LFEA spokesman
Chuck Gress said.
“It
is a very fair agreement and compromise on both sides,” Gress
said.
http://lakeforest.suntimes.com/news/15357513-781/isbe-wont-count-lake-forest-strike-days.html
27
Student
leaders scrambled Wednesday, the first day back after a five-day teacher
walkout, to salvage the planned Thursday night pep rally at West Campus and
asked school administrators if they could hold it at East Campus after school
on Friday instead.
The
only hint that there was any change in plans came when Student Council
President Hannah Faucher thanked the administrators
at the start of the Friday pep rally “for letting us do this on such sort notice.”
Student
Council members had just 48 hours from when the teachers’ returned to classes
on Sept. 19 to pull off a pep rally on Sept. 21, but they got it done — and
they got it done right.
Students
from all grade levels decked out in Scout blue and gold packed the competition
gym and cheered the performances by the LFHS band, cheerleaders and poms teams. The high caliber of the routines and
arrangements made it look as if the teachers’ strike, makeshift classes and
student candlelight vigil that marked the beginning of the week never happened.
“It
was a good way for the week to end,” Faucher said.
Faucher and Student Council Vice
President Kerry Wanner, both seniors, agreed that the
Friday afternoon pep rally at East Campus turned into a better show of support
from students, parents and faculty than the last few Thursday night Homecoming
pep rallies at West Campus.
“It
was a good opportunity for the whole school to come together and for students
to show they are part of the school and from the faculty that makes it happen,”
Wanner said.
28
Dennis
Jensen recalled holding a special slip of paper in his hand last winter, and
was on the verge of serving it to the other side.
The
document was game changer, as it authorized the Deerfield Education Association
to strike if the union’s negotiating team believed contract discussions had
reached an impasse with Deerfield Elementary District 109.
Talks
were at a stalemate at the time, said Jensen, the union’s president. Teachers
supported a strike by a 261-2 vote.
But
in the end, Jensen did not issue the notice.
“Nobody
wanted to go on strike,” Jensen said.
But,
“if (the district) thought we weren’t going to do it they were wrong,” he
added.
While
Lake Forest and Chicago teachers recently walked the picket lines, District 109
was able to narrowly avoid its own strike earlier this year.
District
109’s new four-year teachers
contract was approved in May after 13 months of arduous negotiations that
escalated to the near-strike proportions.
Labor
unrest has spread near and far the past few years as school districts tightened
their belts. Political beliefs may also be at play.
Jensen
maintains that “real issues” — such as the housing market crisis and economic
recession— are sometimes “used as a smokescreen for a conservative effort to restrict
collective bargaining rights of teachers.”
Some
national education reform groups aren’t necessarily anti-union or anti-teacher,
he added, but rather subscribe to a philosophy that asserts management rights.
“The
last bastion of organized labor is governmental unions,” he said. “They don’t
like that workers have a say in their jobs or in their
working conditions.
“They
want to re-impose their complete control over education.”
Jensen,
from the union perspective, said the power struggle within District 109 did
mimic what is happening elsewhere.
“A
lot was about reasserting (district) control,” he said of the past negotiation,
particularly when it came to evaluations.
Jensen
added: “I’ve seen this in many districts in Lake County.”
Ultimately
the year-long process at District 109 was worthwhile, he concluded, since
students will benefit in the long run.
Jensen
considers the Chicago strike a success partially because, under their new
contract, student test scores would not determine teacher’s merit pay.
Jensen
ultimately hopes the push back by Chicago and Lake Forest teachers will “slow
or stop the snowball argument” that a lackluster financial situation means more
control from above.
“Hopefully
we’ll get back to the level where we are dealing with each as equals in the
process for the good of the students,” Jensen said.
While
teachers went on strike earlier this month in Lake Forest and Chicago,
Barrington District 220 teachers and district leaders have been quietly negotiating
a new deal.
The
district’s existing teachers contract expired in
August, forcing local teachers to work under the terms of the prior agreement
ever since.
In
the meantime, district officials reported that both sides have been meeting to
come to a new long-term deal.
“We’re
hoping that the dialogue will get us to a contract,” said District 200 Superintendant Dr. Tom Leonard. “We’re still in
negotiations.”
While
School Board members were tight lipped about the details of current
negotiations, they offered a local perspective on the regional teachers contract unrest.
Leonard
said he followed the strikes in Chicago and Lake Forest on the news, but added
that he does not have all the details of those negotiations.
“There
are a lot of variables out there,” Leonard said. “There’s a lot of trying to
figure out how to measure teacher evaluations.”
Leonard
referenced Senate Bill 7, which states that by 2017, teacher evaluations must
factor in a significant amount of student academic achievement. How they are
going to do that, Leonard said, is something he’d be interested to learn.
“I’d
like to know exactly how they’re doing that,” Leonard said. “That would be more
interesting.”
Leonard
said he was not sure as to why there is such a high level of labor unrest in
Chicago and Lake Forest.
“I
haven’t seen the final details of the settlement,” Leonard said of Lake Forest.
oct 1
LFEA
spokesman Chuck Gress said: “The LFEA received a copy
of the tentative agreement from the BOE late Friday afternoon (Sept. 28),
according to our lead negotiator, Tom Gigiano. The
LFEA negotiating team is currently reviewing the document for accuracy.
http://gazebonews.com/2012/10/01/whats-up-with-lake-forest-teacher-contract/
2
As
CBS 2’s Susanna Song reports, teachers in Evergreen Park announced a strike
Monday night after contract negotiations failed. The teachers plan to head to
the picket lines at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday.
There
will be no school for 1,800 District 124 junior high and grade school students.
Last
month, the Evergreen Park Federation of Teachers rejected a four-year contract,
saying insurance costs went up and retirement benefits went down.
They
also want to see bigger pay raises, not tied to or based on their students’
performance.
Union
spokesman Dave Comerford said District 124 threatened
at negotiations Monday night not to do what most school district do if there is
a strike, and make up any lost class days.
“I’ve
never seen a district put it in the contract language before a strike ever
happened,” Comerford said. “And it was clear – this
wasn’t about anything else but, ‘You better watch out what you’re going to
lose. And it was a threat. It was an intimidation.”
Comerford says teachers and students end
up losing under the current proposal, and points out that the district’s
reserve fund is three times what it needs to be. The school board says it is
just trying to be financially responsible.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/10/02/teachers-headed-to-picket-lines-in-evergreen-park/
Lake
Forest High School teachers likely will vote Tuesday on the tentative contract
hammered out by negotiators, just in time for the District 115 Board of
Education to vote on the contract later that evening.
“We
were able to make some revisions to documents we received Friday,” Lake Forest
Education Association spokesman Chuck Gress said
Tuesday.
Once
the union receives the final contract document, “it will be stored on a secured
website so only the teachers can view it,” Gress
said.
LFEA
bylaws require that the membership have the opportunity to read the final
document five working days before a ratification vote is held, said Mark Stein
of the Illinois Education Association.
Neither
the union nor the school board will disclose the terms of the contract until
Tuesday.
“Once
the union ratifies the contract, we’ll release that,” said Allen Albus of District 115.
Gress said he is “optimistuc that our side will take a vote on Tuesday.”
http://lakeforest.suntimes.com/news/15501116-781/lake-forest-contract-ratification-anticipated.html
Classes
have been canceled today in Evergreen Park School District 124 after teachers
voted to strike and took to the picket lines this morning.
The
walkout comes as strikes also loom in Highland Park and Crystal Lake this
month.
"It
really feels like it's a power play," said Dave Comerford,
a spokesman for the teachers. "No matter what has been tried to try and
find a way to the middle, there's always been a wrinkle.
"It
was clear last night, 'This is it, you better take
what we give you,' " he said.
No
new talks have been scheduled.
The
major issues include health insurance, retirement benefits and partially
pegging annual salary increases to students' test scores.
The
union also opposes offering salary increases to teachers based on their
students' performance. The school board is offering lower annual increases and
a 1 percent "bonus" raise tied to student outcomes.
Union
leaders say the teachers have already agreed to smaller increases than under
the current contract. The other concessions the school board is seeking are unreasonable
when the district is sitting on $16 million in reserves — three times as much
as the state requires, the union leaders added.
Teachers
in Highland Park-based North Shore School District 112 filed a formal
intent-to-strike notice Friday after failing to reach agreement on salaries,
officials said. The earliest the teachers could strike is Oct. 12, district
spokeswoman Andi Rosen said.
The
North Shore Education Association and school board, which began talks in April,
will resume negotiations Thursday with the help of a federal mediator, she
said. Teachers have worked without a contract since Aug. 21.
In
its final offer, the school board states it wants to discontinue the district's
existing salary structure, which it calls unsustainable. The offer also calls
for limiting tuition costs for professional development and requiring teachers
to pay a larger portion of family medical coverage.
In
Crystal Lake-based Prairie Grove Consolidated District 46, teachers have taken
a strike authorization vote but said they have set no strike date and are
"striving to do everything we can to avoid" a walkout, according to a
statement from the union's negotiating team.
Talks
between the Prairie Grove Teachers Association and the district, refereed by a
federal mediator, are tentatively set to resume Oct. 11.
Superintendent
Lynette Zimmer said that administrators also hope to reach an agreement soon,
and that "the uncertainty is difficult on our families."
4
It
was just after 5 p.m. Sept. 14. Normally, Varsity Field in Lake Forest would be
abuzz with fans watching the sophomore football game, waiting for the varsity
game to kick off at 7:30 p.m.
But
that day, the stands were empty. A teacher’s strike forced the cancellation of
the Scouts’ game against North Suburban Conference Lake rival Lake Zurich.
Leaving a team meeting, somber players walked onto the field and started
throwing the football around.
“It
was pretty bitter,” junior linebacker Jack Kutschke
said, describing the mood of his teammates at that moment. “We were pretty mad,
pretty upset we weren’t able to play. Coach (Chuck Spagnoli)
told us to get it out. Be mad at who you want to be mad at.
“Starting
(the next day), we had to be focused on (Zion-Benton) and the games to come.”
Staying
focused in quite possibly the most challenging circumstance of their young
lives was no given. Classes didn’t resume until Sept. 19, a full week after
teachers walked out. All this ensured was that the Scouts would be playing on
Friday, hosting Zion-Benton in their homecoming game.
How
would they respond? Would there be rust after the week layoff? Had they gotten
over having a game stolen from them?
It
didn’t take long for those questions to be answered. The Scouts scored three
first-quarter touchdowns, playing with a sizable chip on their shoulders in the
first half. You could almost see it coming — a 41-0 halftime score; the final
was 41-13.
For
the first time in a long time, the Scouts had control over an outcome. No
longer were they stuck in the middle of a political firestorm.
http://lakeforest.suntimes.com/sports/15371751-419/happy-to-be-back-in-action.html