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player ready...Roughly 200 Evanston/Skokie District 65 educators and community members gathered last week in the halls of the Joseph E. Hill Education Center prior to a board of education meeting to protest an expired contract with the district and demand that officials approve a new one.
Paula Zelinski, District 65 Educators Council (DEC) president, said the union has been in negotiations with the district since February. The council’s prior four-year contract with the district expired before the start of the new school year. She said DEC’s roughly 700 members have also conducted walks throughout their school buildings while wearing the union’s red T-shirts to protest the lack of a contract.
In a statement delivered at the Sept. 12 meeting, District 65 Supt. Paul Goren said administrators and members of the District 65 Board of Education want a contract, too.
“Since February, we have held approximately 15 sessions with full bargaining teams representing the school board and the District Educators’ Council,” he said. Goren said educators are currently being compensated under the expired contract.
Zelinski said DEC requested the district enter into a federal mediation process multiple times since negotiations began. Goren announced during the Sept. 12 meeting that the board of education’s bargaining team “agreed to the request for a mediator and this process is currently underway.”
Goren said contract negotiations are a “give and take process” and the board of education’s bargaining team has “made very clear the district’s grim financial outlook and the significant deficits on the horizon starting at $4.5 million next school year.”
Zelinski said this year’s bargaining process differs from previous negotiations because Goren and board officials have largely been absent from the negotiating table.
According to an email from board president Candance Chow, Goren joined the negotiation process in June and she attended her first negotiation session earlier this month “in response to concerns from DEC regarding the presence of a board member at the table.”
Zelinski said Goren didn’t attend a bargaining session until Aug. 15.
The board’s team consists of “senior administrators who have executive authority and two trusted school principals,” Chow wrote.
Zelinski said in the past the superintendent and two school board members “were always there” during negotiations with the union. She said DEC has repeatedly asked for the board and superintendent’s presence at the bargaining table and the lack of it “has not been helpful.”
In response to Zelinski’s comments, Chow wrote that the board and superintendent have been “active participants” in the negotiation process.
“Between regular updates by the negotiations team, participation in planning committees and ongoing discussion in executive sessions, we are able to provide oversight and direction as it relates to negotiation planning,” she wrote.
The board president and the union “have a different view on what the term ‘active participation’ means,” Zelinski said. “To us it means showing up and being engaged in the process.”
She said teachers feel their work for the district should be valued and that they’re concerns are not being heard by board members.
“The members of the board’s bargaining team have a great deal of experience working within our schools and very closely with our educators. Both Supt. Goren and the board were more than confident in our team to have those conversations and several tentative agreements were reached with DEC to address some of these issues,” Chow wrote.
The sticking points so far in the bargaining process have largely revolved around teacher planning time and classroom conditions, according to Zelinski. She said negotiations around financial compensation did not begin until this past month.
“I would say that there are a number of issues remaining and many of them are non-financial,” Zelinski said.
Negotiating teams are waiting on the assignment of a federal mediator, she said. She added that DEC is hopeful the mediation process will ultimately result in a contract that’s agreeable to both sides sooner rather than later.
“We’ve been encouraging our teachers to keep their focus on the classroom, on the kids, but working without a contract leads to a lot of uncertainty,” Zelinski said.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelancer.
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