Parents have about had it with Prospect Heights District 23 strike
David Sable has been practicing for his big audition since May. His shirt and tie are all picked out.
At exactly 9:04 a.m. Saturday the Prospect Heights seventh-grader should be lifting the baritone up to his face, to audition for the Illinois Music Education Association all-district junior band.
But a teacher is required to be with Sable at his audition, and with the strike in Prospect Heights Elementary District 23, that teacher cannot be there. Therefore, Sable and several other band students cannot try out.
“It's been devastating,” said Wendy Sable of the strike that has kept her son and the other 1,500 students out of school since Sept. 15. The strike is affecting not only learning but extracurricular activities as well. “I'm heartbroken.”
Only the best music students are invited to audition for the IMEA district band, which rehearses and puts on a concert later in the year. Orchestra and choir students will audition later in the fall, by which time the strike may be settled.
“I am taking him to that audition,” Wendy Sable said. “If they turn him away, then they turn him away. I told him to hold his head up high and that no matter what happens, he is a good musician.
“None of this is the kids' fault. The ones who are getting hurt the most are the ones with zero voice in all of this.”
As the District 23 teacher strike heads into a seventh day Friday, parents are starting to lose faith that children will be back in class soon.
On Thursday, teachers voted to reject what the school board called its “best and final” offer, even though they agreed to meet with the union leadership again Thursday night.
Kalee Genis's family moved to Prospect Heights from St. Charles in June. Her son, Caidn, was just starting to make new friends in third grade when the strike began.
Genis, who also has a newborn daughter at home, said the excitement Caidn felt about having a couple of days off from school has worn off.
“Every night we have gone to bed thinking, 'There might be school in the morning,' and every morning my son comes into my room and asks,” she said. “Every day I have to explain to them that his teachers aren't mad at him, that the strike isn't his fault, that he doesn't have to bring his own money to school for the teachers.”
Genis has started teaching Caidn herself. They have kept up with his reading log and on Monday they bought workbooks he can do at home.
Now she's worried her son will have first-day-of-school stress all over again when the strike ends — and she may not put him through it.
She talked to a friend who home-schools her three boys, who has connected her with the home-school program.
“If he even slightly enjoys it, we will no longer be in District 23,” Genis said. “My son deserves stability and an education. And six days out of school is absolutely unacceptable.”
Another parent, Kathleen Muglia, echoes those sentiments. She is meeting with a home schooling instructor Saturday and plans to enroll her twin seventh-graders until the strike is over — and possibly after.
“This (does) such harm to the learning environment. I don't know if this can be repaired,” said Muglia, who lives in Arlington Heights.
Muglia said she thinks a lot of parents are afraid to speak up because they may be labeled as being against the teachers.
“We love our district, we love our teachers. We want to support them and give them as much money as we possibly can,” she said. “But I don't think that means they should be allowed money that is just not there. I believe the board when they are saying this is as much money as we can afford to give.”
The latest offer from the board included raises of between 2 percent and 3.75 percent for teachers over a four-year contract.
“We have a community filled with hardworking, middle-class, reasonable-minded parents who have not seen high raises in their jobs,” Muglia said. “How do the teachers feel they are entitled to a certain percentage salary increase just because they work hard? We all work hard.”
Bridget Piagari of Arlington Heights is most concerned that her sixth-grader, Dylan, is missing therapy sessions and interventions for Asperger syndrome.
“It has not been easy,” Piagari said. “And it is definitely not helping him.”
Piagari and her husband both work, so she has had to take Dylan and his brother, a fifth-grader, with her on her housecleaning jobs.
“If I don't work, I don't get paid, and my family needs my extra income,” she said. “All the parents who in the beginning were trying to be supportive of both sides are just getting sick of this. Our patience has run out.”
Kelly Page of Prospect Heights estimated that the strike has so far cost her $200 in child care for her first-grade son, Alex.
“I am a single working mother, so each day this strike goes on costs me extra money not in the monthly budget,” Page said. “This is really adding up. I think it is very sad in that the cost of day care is likely hurting our less prosperous families the hardest — and typically they are the most vulnerable already.”
On Thursday, Alex wasn't feeling well, so instead of day care he went to work with Page.
“I think that both sides have acted petulantly in this dispute, and that neither side at this point is acting in the best interests of the children,” Page said. “Bottom line is I am fed up with this whole situation, and think it is grossly unfair to the children.”