U-46, teachers reach tentative deal

Elgin Area School District U-46 and the Elgin Teachers Association reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement Tuesday evening after months of negotiations.

"Specific details will not be shared publicly until the members of the ETA are provided information on the agreement," a district e-mail said.

Tuesday's bargaining session was the second of two sessions scheduled with a federal mediator.

The 2,400 members of the state's second-largest teachers union have been working under the terms of an expired contract since the beginning of the school year.

In October, teachers rejected a first tentative contract, by a vote of 1,183 to 1,125. That pact called for average raises of 6.1 percent in the contract's first year and of 4.4 percent to 5.7 percent, as determined by the rate of inflation, in the second and third years of the contract.

Class sizes and caseloads were the sticking points of the settlement terms. Teacher salaries could be affected by fixing those issues, Elgin Teachers Association President Tim Davis said last week.

The October deal would have provided two teacher aides at each high school and one aide at each middle school to relieve excessive class sizes, a proposal that teachers called insufficient.

In an October survey by the union, teachers who rejected the deal communicated that they felt overburdened, overstressed and under-appreciated. In the extended comment section of the survey, 65 teachers also said they voted "no" to send a message to the school board.

If a settlement was not reached, the union was prepared to take a vote to strike as early as Friday, Elgin Teachers Association President Tim Davis said.

U-46 teachers went on strike seven times between 1978 and 1991. The last work stoppage lasted 21 days.

The union will present the details of the tentative contract agreement to its members on Sunday. Union members will vote on the agreement Tuesday, the union's bargaining team outlined.