Teachers with Wilmette-based Avoca School District 37 are expected to rally outside district headquarters Thursday evening in protest of proposed program cuts and larger class sizes.
The teachers, who are back in the classroom with students this fall under a hybrid learning plan, are also working without a contract, according to officials with the Avoca Education Association, the school district’s teachers union.
Avoca teachers and their supporters plan to gather wearing masks and social distancing prior to the school board meeting, “to push for the best contract for students, educators and the community,” AEA President Jen Pease said in a Thursday statement.
“We fear that positions will be cut and program offerings will be reduced,” said Pease.
She said under the board’s current contract proposal, there could be reductions in staff for the district’s award-winning Strings Program.
“It’s a huge draw for the district,” Pease said. “Our students deserve these opportunities. We have to protect them.”
Teachers with District 37, which serves 700 students in preschool through eighth grade, and is a feeder district to New Trier High School, have been back in the classroom providing in-person instruction with a hybrid plan at Avoca West and Marie Murphy schools since late August.
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While District 37 Superintendent Kaine Osburn on Thursday acknowledged that he was surprised by the teachers union going public with their concerns about the contract negotiations, he praised his staff for their hard work getting the school year off to a strong start.
“The school year is going very well for the same reasons that so many things go well at Avoca — the community’s investment and our teachers, who are fantastic,” Osburn said.
In regards to the teachers’ concerns about the future of the Strings Program’s staff, Osburn said, “that has not come up at all in our contract negotiations, and there has also been no proposed program cuts.”
“The characterization that there will be drastic cuts is inaccurate, and we’re looking to make sure the compensation remains fair so we can continue to attract high-quality candidates to the district,” Osburn said.
But Pease said Avoca’s 85 teachers and other certified staff members have been working without a contract since Aug. 24, despite their having been bargaining with District 37 since June.
“We are actually asking for less money than we got in our last contract because for us, this is about putting our students first,” Pease said.
“We want to do what’s right for our students and our community,” Pease said, adding: “The board, on the other hand, is proposing drastic cuts to salaries and benefits, which will make it extremely difficult to retain our talented and experienced educators. Without high-quality teachers our students’ education will suffer.”
The Avoca teachers rally is slated for 5:45 p.m. Thursday at Marie Murphy School, 2921 Illinois Road, prior to the school board meeting at 6:30 p.m.
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