District 103 teachers contract includes performance bonuses
Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103 teachers will be financially rewarded for excellent work under a new three-year contract.
The deal, which was approved by the school board Tuesday night, awards all educators 2.4 percent annual salary increases.
Performance bonuses also are possible, an unusual incentive for suburban public-school teachers.
They will range from 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent the first year and from 0.1 percent to 1.6 percent in the second and third years of the deal, Superintendent Scott Warren said.
“The performance bonuses are to reward great work,” Warren told the Daily Herald in an email. “This was an interest raised during the bargaining process, and the team thought it would work well in the new contract.”
The bonuses are one-time rewards and won’t be used to calculate the next year’s salary, Warren said.
Such bonuses for teachers are rare, a spokesman for the Illinois Education Association said. In Lake County, Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128 teachers are eligible for performance bonuses under a three-year contract approved in 2012.
The District 103 contract is retroactively effective Aug. 20. The teachers union approved the deal last month.
The previous contract was a six-year deal that expired Aug. 19. Negotiations began this past March, and the process was positive, Warren said.
District 103 employs 154 teachers at three schools: Laura B. Sprague School, Half Day School and Daniel Wright Junior High. The schools serve 1,651 students.
The average teacher salary as of the 2012 district report card was $78,458.