D135 Parents Press Teachers and Administrators on Slow Contract Negotiations

Increasing transparency between all parties is listed first among the main goals on CARE135’s new website.

Parents of students who wanted more communication with the board about actions before they were voted on recently started the organization, whose name stands for Citizens Acting Responsibly for Education. With that in mind CARE135 members met with school district staff, board member Lynne Donegan and Illinois Federation of Teachers Field Services Director Deneen Pajeau Monday morning for their second open meeting.

CARE135 members asked what led to the lengthy teacher contract negotiations, among other recent issues.

Lines of Communication

“CARE came to be because of the teacher contract delay,” said Nabeha Zegar, one of the CARE135 founding members, before asking Donegan what she believed led to the slowed process.

Donegan said she was “told back in August to stand by the phone, they are getting ready to sign in a couple of weeks,” but then never got a follow up call.

 “It was December, and I didn’t know what the sticking points were,” she said.

John Reiniche, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services, said an update was given in closed session to the board, though Donegan had missed that meeting.

The two argued briefly as to whether she had notice before the meeting that an update would be given. Donegan said the district’s attorney filled her in after the meeting.

Interim Superintendent Dennis Soustek said five years ago, board members were updated after each meeting in closed session about negotiations, but pointed out he wasn’t involved in the latest process.

 “I didn’t think there was anything that couldn’t have been worked out,” Donegan said, about what was slowing the talks. “To wrap it up, I don’t why it took as long as it did.”

Donegan said legalities prevented describing aspects of the negotiations publically.

Rule of the Contract

Teachers were not outside of criticism during Monday’s meeting. During the negotiations, teachers were seen waiting in their cars until moments before the school day began. Meeting attendees asked Pajeau why that was done.

“They were working to the rule of exactly what was in the contract and not additionally doing the volunteering they’d normally be doing,” Pajeau said. “Obviously teachers are typically in the buildings a lot earlier and stay a lot later and that goes unnoticed outside the negotiation period. That is the point, to make it aware to administrators and the school board the amount of professionalism that teachers are putting forth. They wanted to avoid the step of moving to a strike.”

Zegar said parents were disappointed by the act.

“We’re standing behind the teachers and we still do, and still think we have the best teachers around, but at the time that looked bad to us,” she said.

Pajeau also pointed out that the disclosure restrictions weren’t tied up as much in labor laws, but rather are in place to keep negotiations manageable without too many voices at the table.

“It’s due to the fact that we have about 400 certified and 250 support staff,” Pajeau said. “Then what if 15,000 voters show up? The process of negotiation would be difficult.”

Pajeau offered some insight from the union’s perspective into the negotiation holdups.  

 “There were a lot of language items on the table the board side had brought forth to change in the way salaries would be configured, and that took a lot of time to work through,” Pajeau said.

Editor's note: Nabeha Zegar is a Patch contributor.

Return later in the week for discussion on ’s demotion, administrator salaries and other points.