Wilmette Public Schools District 39 and its 333 teachers have approved a new three-year contract that will run from the current school year through the 2018-19 school year.
The agreement will hike teachers’ base salaries by 2.45 percent plus the consumer price index (CPI) in the first year, school officials said. The second contract year will see base salaries rise by CPI plus 2.25 percent, and by CPI plus 2.2 percent in the final year.
The contract marks the second time District 39 and its teachers, who are represented by the Wilmette Education Association, have abandoned a traditional pay schedule that features lane and step increases in favor of tying salary increases to the CPI.
“This contract reaffirms the District’s ongoing commitment to be fiscally responsible while attracting and retaining high quality teaching staff,” school board Vice President Mark Steen, who was on the district’s negotiating committee, said when school board members approved the contract Nov. 14.
Teachers ratified the contract on Nov. 7, district communications director Holly Goldin said.
More Top Picks Best Wifi Router
Goldin said teaching salaries in 2015-16 cost the district roughly $26 million. The new contract adds about 4 percent, or about $1 million, to that amount in 2016-2017, the first year of the new contract, she said.
That means that base salaries for teachers working 184 days a year will range from $47,915 to $128,846. However, that doesn’t include extra stipends that individual teachers may earn for taking on extra duties.
It includes a .75 percent salary increase that teachers will earn in the agreement’s first two years, Goldin said. That increase will cover extra teaching time that kindergarten through fourth grade teachers will undertake, Goldin said in a Nov. 14 press release.
“A scheduling committee will be established, and final recommendations (on teaching time) will be made by the end of the 2016-2017 school year,” Goldin said.
No matter what the district’s CPI turns out to be in each year, no teacher will receive a raise of more than 4 percent, nor less than 2.5 percent, Goldin said. Contract language provides for salary hike adjustments to ensure that maximum and minimum increase amount, she said.
The new contract will add approximately $450,000 to the 2016-2017 budget of $72.03 million, approved in August, according to Goldin, because district officials had already factored in some contractual increases when they planned the budget.
Jenny Rosene, president of the Wilmette Education Association, said her members are happy with the results.
“I think we’re pleased with the results. It was a very constructive process, wherein both sides listened to each other,” she said.
Rosene said district officials first raised the issue of teaching schedules, “but teachers agreed it was a necessary issue to talk about.”
The two sides began negotiating in February and working with a federal mediator in late August, Rosene said.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy