No plans to reopen District 203 contract
Naperville Unit District 203 and its teachers union both say they have no plans to reopen teacher contract talks for the coming school year.
The current agreement gives teachers average salary increases of 3.8 percent for 2009-10, the same increase they received this year.
The raises also fall in line with the 3.87 percent salary bumps approved Monday in neighboring Indian Prairie Unit District 204.
The District 203 school board approved its teachers contract in April 2007 to cover the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.
The deal took just three weeks to negotiate and a tentative agreement was reached less than two weeks before that year's school board election. The timing angered some in the community who felt the district should have waited until new board members were seated.
Because of the controversy, the two sides agreed to add a clause allowing either one to reopen the contract between Feb. 1 and June 30, 2009, to make revisions for the 2009-10 school year.
Since the 2007 deal was inked, two new board members - Mike Jaensch and Terry Fielden - won seats in that spring's election and were soon joined by Jackie Romberg, who was appointed to the board several months later.
Another two new faces - Jim Dennison and Dave Weeks - were victorious in the board election earlier this month and will take their seats in May.
"There are no plans that I'm aware of to reopen (the contract) at this time," Superintendent Alan Leis said Tuesday.
Both Dennison and Weeks said they have no intention of requesting the deal be renegotiated.
Dave Griffith, president of the Naperville Unit Education Association, also said he sees no need to reopen the contract.
"It is what it is," he said. "We tend not to open up contracts once they're agreed upon unless we work to get an extension agreement like we did last time."
The union represents about 1,350 teachers.
If the salary schedule remains untouched, the starting salary for a teacher next school year with a bachelor's degree and no experience will be $42,808. A teacher with a master's degree plus 54 hours of additional college credit and 22 years of experience will make $105,278.