U-46 contract talks to go to mediation
After more than nine months of fruitless contract negotiations, Elgin Area District U-46 and the teachers union have agreed to bring in a mediator to sort out the ongoing dispute.
The bargaining team for the Elgin Teachers Association, which represents about 2,200 educators, sent a request for mediation to the school district last week. On Monday, the district agreed.
“The board is hopeful that a mediator will help us reach an agreement that is in the interests of both our teachers and all our students,” U-46 Chief of Staff Tony Sanders said.
The two parties later this week will submit a joint request for mediation with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an independent agency of the federal government that assists in resolving labor disputes. The mediator will act as a go-between in an attempt to reach a final settlement. However, the mediator will not draft solutions.
Kathryn Castle, president of the Elgin Teachers Association, said the union is interested in working collaboratively to find a solution but that the two sides cannot agree on how to make changes to the school day, including the length of instruction time.
“The ETA has always agreed that the school day needs to change because we are not giving kids the best learning environment we can,” Castle said. “But with the limited resources and the rush to solutions, we’re afraid we’re not going to do what is right for the kids.”
Teachers have been working under an extension to the 2007-2010 teachers contract. Sanders said teachers have continued to receive raises for additional certificates and degrees, but step increases for years of service remained frozen.
Several teachers spoke during Monday’s board of education meeting, outlining their workdays and the roadblocks they face.
Marty Potts, a sixth-grade teacher at Sycamore Trails Elementary School in Bartlett, said the district expends too much energy on analyzing data.
“We are asked to do things as if one size fits all, but these things are not always a benefit to the students at Sycamore Trails,” Potts said. “Making our day longer will not fix this. It will just add to making teaching more difficult.”
Furthermore, Julio Martinez, an English Language Learners teacher at Sheridan Elementary School in Elgin, said morale at school has diminished because students do not meet district goals.
“Teachers now walk around with their heads down as if they failed,” Martinez said. “The fact that each student in the class increased an average of three to five points is overlooked. That is not good enough to meet our goal. Instead we are forced to look at the students who are very close to the numbers we need and spending all of our time to push them up 20 points in order for our class to meet the goal.
“...We need to redirect our focus back to our students. If we spend less time concentrating on numbers, then we have the time needed to collaborate and plan.”