Maine Twp. District 207 could cut 75 teaching jobs

Maine Township High School District 207 may eliminate 75 teaching jobs as part of cuts to whittle down a projected $17 million deficit next school year, a top official confirmed Tuesday.

Most of the jobs cut would be of nontenured teachers.

Yet, it may not come to that if the Maine Teacher's Association reopens the contract and agrees to a salary freeze next year, Superintendent Ken Wallace said.

Should the union decide to forego a roughly 3.2 percent cost-of-living increase in 2010, it could save up to 55 jobs, Wallace said.

Union members - just shy of 600 teachers - are expected to vote in early December on whether to reopen the contract, which extends to 2012. A date for the vote will be set this week, said Emma Visee, Maine Teacher's Association president and a teacher at the district's Alternative Resource Center in Morton Grove.

Visee said members' reaction to the possibility of losing teachers and its impact on services or alternatively losing salary increases in this economy has been varied among teachers at different stages of their careers.

"They are angry," Visee said. "They are also very concerned about their colleagues not having jobs. They are very concerned about students in larger size classes. Those aren't the feelings of only one group of people."

Visee said some of the nontenured teachers came from other districts where they were tenured but were drawn to District 207 because of its reputation.

"The bright promise that they were given has turned into a dark dream for them," she said.

Wallace said, if the union does nothing, they stand to lose 75 teachers for sure, whereas by renegotiating they could reduce that number significantly.

Per the current four-year teacher's contract which expires Aug. 15, 2012, teachers are guaranteed a cost-of-living increase of between 3 and 3.5 percent annually on top of yearly step raises for about 76 percent of teachers. Both certified teachers and teaching assistants are covered in the contract.

District officials also are cutting expenditures across the board. Earlier this month, the school board approved $1.1 million in administrative cuts, which includes the dismissal of seven administrators at the end of the current school year.

Many other administrators face heavier workloads and pay freezes. However, the district has not frozen salary increases for any nonunion employees.

"That is certainly something that will have to be considered," Wallace said. "We have a plan to cut expenditures by about $15 million and we're going to try to raise about $2 million in revenues."

That may include cutting nonunion personnel, scaling back on technology upgrades and trying to increase advertising revenue at games.

"As we look at decreasing expenditures in every area, the teacher area will be the smallest area as a percentage of total expenditures impacted," Wallace said.

Many districts have attempted to renegotiate teacher's contracts in tough financial times.

"Denver teachers just did it," Wallace said. "I think you are going to see more and more of it. We really believe that they (teachers) understand the bigger picture of protecting and looking out for the long-term interest of our district and the welfare of our community."