Waukegan teachers’ union approves proposed four-year contract – Chicago Tribune

A proposed contract would push most Waukegan School District 60 teachers' salaries up 3.5 or 4.5 percent next year, which the school board president said was part of an effort to bridge the pay gap between Waukegan and other nearby communities.

The district released a draft of the proposed contract changes Friday afternoon after a district spokesman said union members approved the new four-year contract.

Teachers approved the proposed agreement by a wide margin, with 97 percent voting "yes," teachers' union President Kathy Schwarz said, adding in a news release announcing the vote that the Waukegan Teachers' Council and the Lake County Federation of Teachers would be endorsing school board President Mike Rodriguez along with candidates Porfirio Garcia and Brandon Ewing in the April 4 board elections.

"(W)e know that they will continue to promote the spirit of cooperation between the Board and the Teachers' Union," Schwarz said in the statement.

Rodriguez said it was important to him to reach a deal before the elections because no one knows what the make-up of the new board would be, and he wanted to ensure a contract was in place before the next school year started.

Rodriguez added that he started reaching out to union leadership two years ago after he was elected board president. He said he vowed then that the 16,800-student district would not go through another situation like the bitter monthlong strike in 2014 that preceded the last contract.

Under the proposed four-year contract, starting teacher salaries would rise 2.25 percent the first year, 2 percent the second, 2.25 percent the third and 2 percent the fourth, according to a breakdown of contractual changes provided by the district. In the last contract, starting salaries rose 2.5 percent in the second year and 1.25 percent in the final year.

Teachers who have between one and 22 creditable years of service would see their salaries rise 4.5 percent the first year, 4 percent the second, 4.5 percent the third and 4 percent the fourth, according to the contracts. The last contract started with raises of 5.75 percent followed by increases of 5 and 2.5 percent.

The longevity bump for teachers who hit 23 years of service would remain at 6 percent, according to the contract documents.

Teachers with 24 or more years would see a 3.5 percent increase the first year followed by raises of 3 percent in year two, 3.5 percent in year three and 3 percent in year four, according to district records. Teachers with that level of experience received raises of 3.25 percent in both year one and year two of the last contract and 2.5 percent of its final year.

The proposed increases fall within what the district was prepared to offer and is something the district can afford under financial projections prepared by district staff, Rodriguez said. He added that he feels it's important to bridge the pay gap between Waukegan and other nearby districts but that it can't be done in one contract.

"Their level of pay is below par with a lot of the neighboring districts," he said. "We get so many good teachers right out of college. We train them, we prepare them, and as soon as they become really experienced and knowledgeable, they go to another district."

Schwarz said she was "on the same page with his sentiments" in making the district more competitive, noting that bringing in new teachers and keeping them is always a concern.

The new contract also includes a new section on Senate Bill 100, a state law passed in 2015 that makes it harder for school districts to use discipline methods like suspensions and expulsions that takes students out of the classroom, according to the draft.

The changes are designed to address concerns raised by the union, Rodriguez said. The new law has led to uncertainties about how teachers can discipline students, making them more tentative and creating "times when students were a little bit more how should I say this bold and daring because they thought, 'Well, they can't suspend us,' " Rodriguez said.

The new law did not provide a lot of clarity and left a lot to districts to figure out for themselves, Schwarz said. She said she thought the only way to overcome those challenges was to inform teachers what the law says and include them in the process.

The proposed contract language says a team of teachers and administrators will assess how different interventions and consequences are working for individual students who commit infractions; teachers will be allowed to provide input before a final decision on interventions or discipline is made; and teachers will be notified of what that decision is.

Each school will develop their own "discipline plans," a fluid document meant to show how responsibility for student discipline is shared by the parents, the administration, the teacher and the student, and list nondisciplinary interventions available, according to the draft.

These additions would allow teachers and administrators to work together in building the frameworks in which discipline and interventions would occur, Schwarz said.

emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman

Here is the original post:
Waukegan teachers' union approves proposed four-year contract - Chicago Tribune