No school Thursday in District 23
Students will be out of the classroom for a sixth day on Thursday as the Prospect Heights Elementary District 23 teacher strike continues, although the school board has presented the union with what it calls its "best and final" offer.
The board presented its last offer in the early hours of Wednesday morning - which was set to be a nonattendance day anyway because of Yom Kippur - and called on the Prospect Heights Education Association to vote on the proposal that day and get students back in class, but that didn't happen.
"At this time there is no tentative contract," union President Bob Miller said Wednesday night. "PHEA continued with negotiations throughout the day and into the early evening. Due to the Jewish holiday many PHEA members were unavailable to attend an evening meeting."
Miller said the union will hold a member meeting on Thursday but did not specify if a vote would be taken or what time the meeting would be.
School board President Mari-Lynn Peters said the final offer means her board is no longer negotiating, although she is not sure what would happen if the union did not agree to the final offer.
"This is all the money we have, and it's the best offer we can come up with," Peters said.
The final proposal includes a four-year contract that would give teachers a 3.75 percent raise the first year, a 3.5 percent raise the second year and 3.25 percent raises in the third and fourth years. High-wage earners, or those making more than $90,000 per year, would receive a 3 percent raise the first year and a 2 percent raise the other three years of the contract. Peters said that if the union votes to ratify the contract on Thursday and lets the board know early enough to notify the bus and food service companies, students could be back in school on Friday for the first time since Sept. 15.
"The parents were really disappointed that they did not have a vote today (Wednesday)," Peters said. "Everyone was just kind of waiting."
More than 1,500 students attend District 23 from Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Prospect Heights and Wheeling. The 150 members of the PHEA have been on strike for more than a week in the district's first walkout in history.