HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Dozens of local teachers addressed a special meeting of the Township District 113 High School board Tuesday to discuss proposed changes to working conditions and school schedules at Deerfield and Highland Park high schools.
In over two and a half hours of public comments, District 113 educators repeatedly chastised administrators and board members for the handling of the proposals, which included mandatory morning office hours for full-time certified staff. Teachers also criticized the way the changes were communicated — an email on the eve of the final day of school.
The sometimes emotional remarks followed discussion among board members during which Superintendent Bruce Law was directed to “recalibrate” the process of drawing up changes to student schedules and the faculty handbook.
While Law and some board members pointed out that the teachers’ representatives had declined to negotiate over the proposal when it was first floated in January, staff who spoke at the meeting said renegotiating of working conditions should take place in the final year of a collective bargaining agreement.
Law said it would be impossible for the district to achieve its goals if so many people remain so upset.
“It seems like we’re having a moment in the U.S. right now, as I think about this. You know, if you don’t feel like something you don’t like the outcome, it just seems like there’s the option of just going on the attack,” Law said.
“If you don’t like the outcome of an election, go on the attack. If you don’t like what a school board is doing when it comes to coping with the pandemic, requiring masks, go on attack. You don’t like a book in the library,” he said. “It seems as though we don’t take this position of, ‘We have a disagreement with someone, we should sit down and try to sort through these disagreements and these issues.’ That doesn’t seem as much anymore the way, although you can imagine a situation where that would be the case. And here we are.”
Board member Rick Heineman said the District 113 Educational Association, or DEA, the collective bargaining unit representing the high school’s licensed educational staff, has had a copy of the administration’s proposal for nearly five months. Unlike nearly every other public high school district in the state, teachers in the district are not unionized.
“We’ve repeatedly repeatedly asked for input and discussion, and those requests have been rejected,” Heineman said. “So I agree that we should be quite recalibrating, but I would sincerely hope that we could get the DEA, or whatever group is representing our employees, to engage with us to have a discussion on this topic.”
After delivering prepared remarks containing the refrain, “There is a breakdown of accountability and 113 is not doing what is best for its students,” board member Dan Struck said the district needs to negotiate a structure where there are consequences if faculty members fail to meet expectations.
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“For the vast majority, it’s irrelevant. But there are issues with in the district where children aren’t being served and there is a breakdown of accountability,” Struck said. “We need to do a better job of addressing those, and that can only be done through discussions and through finding a mutual understanding about what the expectations are.”
DHS teacher and current DEA President Marty Esgar said it was no coincidence that administrators sprung the proposed working condition changes just before the end of the school year.
