Classes called off again in Dist. 23 due to strike

Prospect Heights Elementary District 23 teachers will return to the picket lines for a third day Friday after more than three hours of negotiations Thursday night between the school district and union failed to bear fruit.

Dan Perillo, a physical education teacher at Douglas MacArthur Middle School and a member of the union negotiation team, said the talks lasted almost four hours.

"After our last offer on Tuesday night the board of education notified us they had room to move," Perillo said, speaking on behalf of the union. "But they presented us with the same proposal that put us on the strike line."

Perillo said that after Tuesday night's negotiations, the two sides were $450,000 apart in total salary over the life of the three year contract and there was no progress achieved Thursday night.

School Board President Mari-Lynn Peters said the board is struggling to understand why the union refused to continue to negotiate.

"The board doesn't understand why the union doesn't agree to sign tentative agreements on the items where the two parties' proposals are so similar," Peters said in a voice-mail message late Thursday.

The next negotiation between the two sides will be Sunday at 6 p.m.

Many of the district's students, who live in portions of Prospect Heights, Arlington Heights, Wheeling and Mount Prospect, attended park district programs in lieu of school Wednesday and Thursday.