All District 203 teachers want is ‘fairness and respect’
As a Naperville teacher of 28 years and a representative of the Naperville Unit Education Association, I want to thank our community for the overwhelming support during our difficult contract negotiations with Naperville School District 203.
Our educators are asking for two simple things: fairness and respect.
On compensation, District 203 is falling behind. Neighboring districts such as Indian Prairie, Elmhurst, Barrington, St. Charles, Wheaton and Plainfield all offer more competitive salaries and benefits. Meanwhile, our workloads have only grown as we address rising student academic, behavioral and social-emotional needs.
Despite claims that meeting our requests would require tax hikes or staff cuts, the district holds more than 300 days of cash on hand and has returned nearly $37 million in tax abatements since 2017. The resources are there.
The district’s proposed “Innovative School Experience” would shift class start and end times, disrupt after-school activities and, in some cases, reduce learning time. We believe these changes do not serve students or families.
Our bargaining team has already spent more than 160 hours at the table. Our contract expired June 30, yet little progress has been made. History shows that five of the last six local contracts ended in mediation. That pattern sends a clear message: District 203 and their legal counsel make an active choice to continually demean, devalue and defeat the very educators who make our schools strong.
Teachers do not want a strike. What we want is partnership. When educators are inspired and supported, students and the entire community thrive. We urge the board to return to the table with a genuine commitment to fairness and respect.
Rob Hunt, Oak Lawn
Pay raises for teachers will not bankrupt District 203
As I begin my 32nd year of teaching in Naperville School District 203, I feel compelled to speak up about the current contract negotiations between the Naperville Unit Education Association (NUEA) and the school board.
In recent communications to the community, the board has implied that teachers are unaware of the district’s finances or even our own raises. Numbers cited to the public appear designed more to confuse than to clarify.
The truth is straightforward: teachers in District 203 are valued less today than in the past. A first-year teacher in 2025 will earn barely above the state minimum, and significantly less (in real terms) than a first-year teacher in 2010. Teachers with 15 or 30 years of experience are likewise valued significantly below their peers of a decade or two ago. Put simply, the career earning potential for today’s educators has been steadily diminished with almost every contract.
The board often claims to “value” teachers, but those words ring hollow when salaries fail to keep up with inflation. The same negotiation pattern has played out for nearly two decades. The board issues warnings about deficits, uses inflated projections and convinces teachers to accept sub-market raises. Later, those conservative projections produce surpluses that are used to pay down debt and lower taxes. This cycle repeats, while teachers’ paychecks fall further behind.
NUEA has no interest in bankrupting the district, but it’s hard not to take it personally as a staff member when sub-market raises consistently end up in tax abatements.
I hope our community can recognize that “steps” (which reflect experience) and “lanes” (which reflect professional development) are not cost-of-living raises. They are the elements that make teaching an affordable profession over the course of one’s career, and they honor research-based value added to the school system.
The only adjustment that helps us keep up with inflation is the base raise, and when that stagnates, the entire salary schedule erodes. The district’s numbers conflate all of these salary enhancements in order to make their offer seem artificially generous. This feels dishonest.
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District 203 has long prided itself on excellent schools. But if teachers here continue to be financially devalued, the district will become a far less attractive place to teach. That hurts all of us.
Dan Iverson, Naperville
Here we go again with District 203 forcing contract impasse
I really can’t believe we are at this crisis point once again in the negotiations process between Naperville School District 203 and the Naperville Unit Education Association.
When I was first hired as a D203 teacher back in 1979, the NUEA went on strike. I was a new teacher and trusted my colleagues knew what we needed as professional educators. Twelve years later, I was president of the NUEA and we were forced to strike, once again. Four days later we settled, but it took an entire community’s support to get it done.
In 2021, negotiations seemed to break down once again, with rallies at Naperville North High School. Luckily, a strike was averted. Now, we are here once again in 2025.
As one of our strong community supporters said, “Do they honestly believe Naperville parents, who likely moved here for the schools, want the district to cut corners when it comes to their children’s education?” The answer is a resounding, “No!”
Our elected District 203 School Board members need to participate more directly in this process to make sure they hear clearly from the representatives of the 1,500 members of the NUEA and they should also listen more carefully to their constituents when they say end this impasse now.
Dianne McGuire, Naperville
Time to fight fire with fire when it comes to Trump’s tactics
We live in a country where the president of the United States is apparently allowed to call up governors and tell them to invent more Republican Congressional districts for him and then those governors respond by saying, “Yes, sir!”
This is a bald-faced, unabashed attack on the democratic values our country was founded on and the people of Texas are being betrayed by their Republican representatives. I am so proud that when the Democratic members of the Texas Legislature left their state to stop that redistricting, Gov. Pritzker and our neighbors right here in DuPage County welcomed them with open arms.
I am also heartened by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for a special election this November for California to also redistrict, but only if Republicans do so first. California is leading the nation in standing up to Trump’s authoritarian overreach, and I hope Gov. Pritzker and the people of Illinois will prepare to do the same.
We can’t simply lay down for a president who has already begun steamrolling our rights and freedom. We must be prepared, as Gov. Newsom says, “to fight fire with fire.”
Jill Grauman, Winfield
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