U-46 teachers union elects new leaders

The 2,500-member Elgin Teachers' Association voted in new leadership this week.

Kathryn Castle, a former Elgin High School teacher and current full-time teacher mentor and union vice president, will replace longtime President Tim Davis beginning in June.

According to the union, MaryEllen Friel, a resource teacher at Heritage Elementary in Streamwood, will serve as union vice president. Kathy Heikkenen, an orchestra teacher at Kenyon Woods Middle School and its elementary feeder schools, was named the union's second vice president.

Davis explained that the union's bylaws require union president and vice president candidates to run together as a slate. Castle, Friel and Heikkenen were elected as a package deal.

The changes come at a pivotal time for the union. Teachers' current three-year contract expires in August. Hours before U-46's Feb. 22 announcement that it plans to slash at least $31 million from next year's budget, district and union officials announced they would be starting contract negotiations several weeks earlier than originally scheduled.

By starting early, and bringing fewer items to the table than in the past, both sides said they hope for a speedy agreement.

But given the district's history with teacher contract negotiations, a quick negotiation is anything from a sure thing.

U-46 teachers went on strike seven times between 1978 and 1991. The last teacher contract negotiations ended in December 2007, only after a federal mediator had been brought in.

Davis said he will be retiring from teaching in June, but declined to comment further about the election or its impact on upcoming negotiations. "I am completely focused on the present," he said.