March
17, 2011:
…the
District 115 contract is extremely generous. For the most part, District 115
pays between 90 and 100 percent of the individual health care premiums and
between 80 and 100 percent of family premiums. Those amounts include dental.
Regarding
pensions, a few years ago legislation was passed to try to slow down spiking
salaries to build fat pensions. Districts used to give 20-20 percent or
10-10-10 percent salary hikes in the last few years of teaching. Legislation
then limited these increases to 6-6-6-6 percent.
The
6-6-6-6 maximum by law is in place for retiring teachers in District 115. To
make up for the lost concessions mandated by the law change, the union in
District 115, as in many districts, bargained for a “post-retirement lump sum
payment.” The lump sum retirement payments to teachers in District 115 range
from $12,000 to $34,000.
Those
who work at private sector jobs will undoubtedly find the present contract in
Lake Forest District 115 to be quite generous. As demonstrated in Wisconsin,
once public unions receive concessions through bargaining, both unions and its
public sector workers fight tooth and nail to prevent benefits from being taken
away.
http://nancyjthorner.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/comcessions-needed-to-stem-lfhs-shortfall/
March
17, 2011:
Just
to recap from the prior two installments, Harry Griffith is the second highest
paid Superintendent in the State of Illinois, although he doesn’t seem to have
the level of challenge or responsibility other Illinois Superintendents have.
Furthermore, the benefit package Mr. Griffith receives from the School Boards
exceeds that of many executives in the private sector who live in our
community. Mr. Griffith is a civil servant and paid by taxpayer dollars. This
distinction seems to be lost on the 14 members on both Lake Forest School
Boards who agreed to Mr. Griffith’s retirement package. In the public sector
where taxpayer dollars are being used, there is no place for such lavish
compensation packages.
May,
2011:
The
Class of 2009 matched the previous all-time high composite for the ACT test
with a mean score of 25.6, ranking the high school fifth statewide compared to
other open enrollment public high schools. Ninety-one percent of the Class of
2009-10 enrolled in a four-year college.
http://lakeforest.patch.com/listings/lake-forest-high-school
May
31, 2011:
The
average salary for a teacher with 13 years experience
at Lake Forest High School is $101,648.28, according to an analysis by the
Chicago Sun-Times.
Lake
Forest High School District 115 ranked second to District 113, which includes
Highland Park and Deerfield high schools, in average salaries for about the
same experience level. A District 113 teacher with 13.5 years
experience earns $104,737.21 annually.
Sept
15, 2011:
Lake
Forest High School’s Class of 2011 set a record for the highest ACT scores in
the school’s history with a composite score of 26.8.
Additionally,
each and every section or subset of the college entrance examination was also
the highest score in Lake Forest High School’s history. This year’s results
surpassed the previous record high of 26.3 set by the Class of 2010. Lake Forest High School’s 5-Year ACT Trend History. The
state average was 20.9 and the national average was 21.1. The ACT scoring scale
is 1 to 36.
Lake Forest High School also heralds three
students with a perfect composite score of 36. Nationwide, less than one tenth
of one percent of students achieves a perfect score.
The Class of 2011 received all-time high
scores on the mathematics, English, reading and science sections of the exam.
The mathematics score was 26.9; the English score of 27.3, a reading section
score of 26.7, and the science score of 25.9 all surpassed previous district
records.
http://lakeforest.patch.com/articles/lake-forest-high-schools-class-of-2011-sets-act-record
Nov
1, 2011:
As
a sign of solidarity last week, Lake Forest High School teachers came to class
reportedly wearing matching T-shirts amid an expired, five-year contract and
negotiations for a new one on the table.
“It’s union stuff,” said District 115 Board of Education
President Sharon Golan. “School went on, teaching went on. There was no
disruption.”
It
is too early to tell whether there are grounds for speculation that teachers
will picket along the front lawn of the 75-year-old high school, Golan said.
Nov
3, 2011:
Lead
negotiator Chuck Gress, a mathematics teacher for
more than 20 years at the high school, claims the school board has asked
teachers to accept a pay freeze, a decrease in its retirement benefits and pay
more toward health insurance in the next contract.
“When
you add it all up,” he argued, “our compensation package would, literally, take
a pay cut.”
Gress spoke Thursday morning while
more than 50 unionized Lake Forest High School teachers walked up and down in
front of the school carrying signs that read 'Don't Cut Our Pay,' 'Fair Pay'
and 'We've Earned a Fair and Equitable Contract,' against a backdrop of parents
dropping off their kids before the first bell rang.
In
a recent phone interview with Patch, District 115 Board of Education President
Sharon Golan said the economic backdrop for the negotiations is different from
when the last contract was negotiated in 2006.
“It
was, really, a very different world prior to 2008,” she stressed. “We
negotiated (then) a contract that was competitive with the other high-ranking
school districts.”
As
for a strike in the near future, Golan doesn't expect one.
“I
think anytime people hear the words ‘union’ and ‘negotiations,’ they jump to
that word (strike), but it’s not expected at this point,” she said.
However,
if a suitable teacher's contract isn't reached by Monday, when both parties
meet next, Gress said it's a “possibility that we'll
take a strike vote.”
http://lakeforest.patch.com/articles/lake-forest-teachers-picket-high-school
Nov
3, 2011:
We
recognize that our previous negotiations resulted in one of the most
competitive teaching contracts in the state of Illinois. The LFEA worked very
hard in past negotiations through the arduous collective bargaining process to
earn the benefits afforded by our now expired contract. As a result of tireless
work, we essentially “caught up” to commensurate districts in the last two (2)
years of our previous contract. Our
standing was finally equitable. We
neither significantly exceeded any comparative district (Highland
Park-Deerfield, New Trier, Stevenson, et al.), nor did we lag behind. For two years, we were “right in the pack.”
The
Board of Education has not made any substantive financial and benefit offer
since September. Their current offer constitutes a diminution of salary,
retirement, and insurance benefits. The current Board offer would once again
put LFHS significantly behind these competing districts. Please ask them why
this must be the case.
The
LFEA is ready to get on with our vocation while maintaining the compensation
that took over a decade to earn -- if only for the last two years. As we have in past negotiations, we ask for
nothing more than the status quo—parity with comparable school districts.
http://lakeforest.patch.com/articles/letter-from-lake-forest-education-association-to-parents
Nov
10, 2011:
We
would like to once again update you on the status of the teacher contract
negotiations. We began this process in April of 2011. The Union was only
willing to meet with the Board once over the summer. We returned to
negotiations in late August but after only two meetings, the Union requested we
move to mediation.
At
our mediation session on Monday, November 7 at the Union's request, we
presented final offers. The Union did not accept our offer, leaving us at an
impasse. The teams are scheduled to meet again Tuesday, November 15.
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs081/1102000766048/archive/1108551722086.html
Nov
10, 2011:
Superintendent
Dr. Harry Griffith said at Tuesday night's District 115 board meeting that the
board's proposal looks to restore its reserves to healthier levels, while
increasing teachers' pay by 10 percent over a four-year period.
Negotiations
started in April, and teachers have been working without a contract since it
expired June 30. A federal mediator was brought in two weeks ago, prompting the
first email from District 115 to parents of Lake Forest High School students on
the state of the negotiations.
The
previous contract impasse occurred in 2006, and teachers conducted pickets that
year as well and eventually received a contract that paid 5.5 percent annually,
including a 6.1 percent average salary increase in 2010-11.
School
Board President Sharon Golan previously had said the economic backdrop for this
year’s negotiations is different from when the last contract was negotiated in
2006. Along with staff cuts of roughly 8 percent and pay freezes for about 150
nonunion employees, the board has kept classes near their historic high, 21
students per teacher, and has avoided programming cuts.
January
20:
There
is perhaps no more frustrating action against the public than teachers’
strikes. While teachers have the advantage of being home with their kids every
day after school, school holidays, and summer vacations and even during strikes
non-teacher parents have to scramble for kid-coverage during those very same
periods.
Lake
Forest Dist. 115 has authorized a strike if a new contract cannot be reached by
Dec. 7. Note that LF 115 employees average over
$106,000/yr. salary.
The
right to strike by any public employee should be limited. Perhaps the teachers
should lose their tenure if they strike. How many of the 19,000 K-12 employees
making more than $10,000/mo. would go on strike with the threat of tenure loss
hanging over their heads? Not many would be my guess.
Let’s
take back the schools from the teacher unions. Or alternatively let’s give more
of our students to the Diocese of Chicago via vouchers and save more than 50%
of our education costs.
June
25:
Bill
Zettler of the Family Taxpayers Foundation has
written over 150 articles on Illinois teacher salaries and pension since 2005.
His book, “Illinois Pension Scam,” was published this year and can be purchased
from www.championnews.net.
Wisconsin
has eight teachers with salaries over $100,000. Illinois has 7,848 teachers
with $100,000-plus salaries, 445 times more than the bordering states of
Kentucky, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri combined.
LF
District 115 is represented by two of Illinois’s top 19 teacher retirees in
2011 already have a beginning pension of over $100,000: Anthony Fillippo ($117,038 - 34 years, age 56) and Evan Richards
($106,299 - 35 years, age 57).
As
excessive salaries lead to excessively high pensions, is it any wonder that
Illinois has the worst-funded pensions in the nation?
Isn’t
it time that LF School Board 115 participate in fiscal discipline in an
economic climate where property taxes are already straining the pocketbooks of
many local taxpayers? Perhaps there should be a freeze on teacher and
supervisory salaries? Why should the beginning salary of Harry Griffith’s
replacement, Michael Stimeck at $250,000, nearly
equal the level of Illinois’s top 100 administrators?
Why
also should Lake Forest District 115, as determined by Bill Zettler
from a report issued by the Illinois State Board of Education, rank as No. 1 in
real cost/pupil in all of Illinois at $43,061 per student?
July
23:
With
the opening of school August 27, the Lake Forest High School teachers remain
without a contract with both the educators and the administration claiming
issues of compensation and benefits remain to be resolved.
“The
mediation session did not produce an agreement and we do not have a date yet
for another,” Golan said. The dispute has been going on a year. The parties
could not agree on a long term contract last year and settled for a one-year
pact.
Though
the union membership voted 104-3 to authorize their leaders to declare a
strike, no work stoppage can occur until at least 28 days after the declaration
of an impasse by the teachers, according to Illinois Education Association
staff member Mark Stein. No impasse has been declared.
http://lakeforest.patch.com/articles/lfhs-teachers-remain-without-a-contract
8
comments:
“Gary”
That's
what I thought.
So,
our school board can't find a way to placate the union, the situation is
degenerating, the teachers voted 104-3 to authorize a strike... and we don't
have a right to know what the issues are or what they are demanding. Unbelievable.
This
is our town, our taxes, our school, and our children... and we have no right to
know what is being asked of us. We are kept out of the process by law. What
kind of negotiation is that?
Am
I the only one who has a big problem with this?
“Me”
Aren't
these teachers already some of the highest paid in the state if not in the
country? Don't get me wrong, the teachers are not the enemy here but they do
need to be reasonable.
For
me, the real enemy is the administration. The amount that is spent on the
superintendent and his army of assistants is obscene.
“Laura”
Let
them walk, let them leave. In an economic time when the citizens of the
community are struggling financially, and most have to either pay into their
healthcare of pay it completely, the teachers are being unreasonable. They are
some of the most well paid teachers in the STATE. If it isn't good enough here,
go somewhere else. I have little sympathy for the teachers, who have more days
off than anyone I know. Do they really think that they are the only ones who
take their work home when the day is done? Sorry. Go strike. I'll cross the
picket line and teach the kids. I'll even be NICE to them. Which
is more than can be said for many in the building.