Two striking teachers at Glenbard South High School in Glen Ellyn were injured, one critically, on Friday when a car drove off rain-slicked Butterfield Road near the school and plowed through their picket line.
The car’s driver, Maryse Manelli, 55, of Elgin, also was critically injured. She was charged with two counts of aggravated reckless driving and one count of driving without a license. State officials revoked Manelli’s driver’s license in March because she suffers from epileptic seizures and has a history of losing consciousness behind the wheel, according to police.
Teachers who witnessed the accident said it seemed to happen in slow motion. They said they were amazed that the car struck only two of their colleagues.
“It could have been any of us,” said Kurt Tillman, a social studies teacher.
Injured were 36-year-old James Snyder of Sugar Grove, an industrial arts teacher and an assistant football coach, and 35-year-old Allen McWilliams of Lombard, a math teacher and the school’s head wrestling coach. The two teachers and Manelli were transported to Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.
A hospital spokeswoman said Snyder was released Friday evening, while McWilliams and Manelli remained in critical condition. Witnesses at the scene said McWilliams suffered a head wound.
The 60 pickets at the school Friday were in their fifth day of a strike over salaries in Glenbard High School District 87. Two groups of 30 teachers were marching along opposite sides of the school building.
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DuPage County sheriff’s police said Manelli’s driver’s license was canceled in March after she blacked out at the wheel and her vehicle struck a snowbank in Winfield Township. Officials said Manelli, who faces up to 6 years in prison if convicted on the felony counts, suffers from unpredictable seizures.
The teachers were marching in the rain on the north side of Butterfield Road about 8:30 a.m., when Manelli’s eastbound car crossed the median and two lanes of oncoming traffic, police said. Neither teacher had a chance to get out of the way, witnesses said.
“They didn’t see it,” said special education teacher Mark Tacchi.
The impact knocked both men into the air, witnesses said, McWilliams was thrown about 30 feet.
A hospital spokeswoman said Manelli and the two teachers suffered multiple bruises, cuts and fractures. After striking the two men, the car slammed into a traffic-signal pole, spun and came to rest at the bottom of an embankment.
Afterward, district teachers gathered in the Glenbard South library to console each other. Some paused in the hallways of the school and hugged.
Leaders on both sides of the salary dispute said the strike at all of the district’s four high schools was put into perspective by Friday’s events.
Supt. Robert Stevens said the accident involving McWilliams and Snyder was “a family tragedy.”
“The current labor relations standoff is similar to a family tiff,” Stevens said. “Just because we disagree at the negotiating table does not change the fact that we are essentially a family. The respect and caring that we have for one another continues.”
The strike will enter its second week Monday unless a tentative agreement is reached over the weekend. Efforts were under way Friday to arrange for another negotiating session, and officials said a Saturday afternoon meeting was a possibility.
The Glenbard Education Association teachers union is asking for a three-year contract with a 5 percent pay raise in the first year and an additional $3,000 bonus for teachers at the top of the salary schedule. The teachers want a 4 percent salary boost and a pension-fund payment equivalent to a 1 percent increase in the second year, with the same deal in the third year.
The school board is offering a three-year pact with a 4 percent raise the first year and a one-time $500 payment for the most experienced teachers. The school board’s plan also calls for a 3 percent raise in each of the second and third years.
District officials have said the school board has offered a fair deal to teachers in which 40 percent of those atop the pay scale would be paid $84,063 after two years.
Teachers want a minimum base pay of $33,325 during the first year of a new pact and a maximum of $79,980. The board’s offer is a $33,008 minimum and a $79,219 maximum.