For students who may have only heard in passing about our teachers working without a contract, or wondered why they were all wearing blue Warren shirts on certain days of the month, the details of what exactly took place have been summarily provided by three key individuals: Superintendent of District 121, Dr. Ahlgrim; Almond Social Studies teacher and Union President, Mr. Jecmen; and Almond Special-Education teacher and Negotiating Chair, Ms. Thompson.

Context

Dr. Ahlgrim’s role in the contract negotiations (as well as others’ in the district office) was to help provide information to both sides relative to the school district, help coordinate the actual sessions themselves, and provide input to both sides on administrative issues related to the collective bargaining agreement, because the Board of Education generally needs some information regarding some of the management-type issues within the collective bargaining agreement.

Mr. Jecmen’s role was to be a communicator and facilitator for all members. He also acts as the spokesperson for the organization in the media. 

Appointed by Mr. Jecmen is Ms. Thompson, who as the head negotiator, gathered a team to set out what the goals of the contract should be and sent out a survey to assess what union members wanted to see done.

It’s important to first establish an understanding of the two organizations involved in the negotiations. Dr. Ahlgrim explained, “The D121 Board of Education is the collective group of elected officials for the school district. They are the ultimate authority on decisions, although much of the regular management of the school district and daily decisions are delegated to our administrators.  The Board does approve all expenditures (including salaries), and contracts in general (including employee contracts). The Warren Township High School Federation of Teachers (WTHSFT) is the local union representing the teachers and most of our classified staff.”

As a side note, teachers are designated as certified staff, meaning that they have earned degrees in their subjects and are certified to teach. Classified staff are school employees that do not necessarily need certification or licensure to qualify for their jobs, such as secretaries, maintenance workers, and librarians. Administrators, including deans and principals, and bus drivers, are not part of the union.

The job of the union, according to Mr. Jecmen, is to represent the rights and working conditions of our workers. Union members have a legal right to bargain collectively, to represent their needs and rights with the Board of Education.

“The Board’s negotiating team and the WTHSFT negotiating team,” Dr. Ahlgrim continued, “which represented their respective groups for the negotiations, began meeting in January 2018, and first exchanged proposals (which means actually discussing potential contract items) in March 2018.  The negotiating teams met approximately 30 times over the 13 month span in which the negotiations occurred. A tentative agreement was reached on March 14 by the negotiating teams, and this was formally ratified by the WTHSFT membership on April 16 and approved by the Board on April 23, 2019.”

The purpose of any collective bargaining agreement is to have in writing, the terms and conditions of employment, which includes regulation of workers’ salaries, benefits, rights, and types of leaves (personal, sick days). Teachers at Warren are employed by the district which is governed by the Board of Education, and thus require a contract. Previous contracts were always in effect for 5 years, and matters outlined in the contract were negotiated in a timely manner when necessary, or teachers operated under the same rolled-over terms from old versions.

Issues and Changes

However, what made this instance different is that when the last contract ended on June 30th of last year, it took, as stated previously, 13 months to agree on a new one. Why?

There were a multitude of issues to address.

First, the contract that WTHSFT members had just come off of had a lot of old language that had been carried over from the years. Mr. Jecmen felt that it was “a great opportunity to clean up contract language, look at where we want to go, and put in place new speech that will benefit that direction.”

Second, there used to be two separate contracts for our teachers and classified staff which had to be merged into one contract with sections that would apply equally to both groups where possible. This took a long time.

Third are the actual terms themselves. The main points of discontent with the former contract were insurance coverage, coaching pay, salary, and student service caseload sizes. With insurance, the stipend amount for dependent tiers, meaning the family of union members, was the lowest in northern Illinois. Coaching pay was the lowest in Lake County.

While teachers’ salary varies based on years of experience and other factors, from research conducted by the WTHSFT, they found that there are two tiers of high school teachers’ salaries. The higher tier consists of schools like Stevenson, Lake Forest, Vernon Hills, and Libertyville. The lower tier includes Warren, Waukegan, Round Lake, and North Chicago. Warren was at the top of the lower tier.

Jecmen states that the mission of Warren as a school is to keep, attract, and retain quality faculty members.

Schools are “a business, and like every other business, you want to make sure that you are remaining competitive.”

While this may sound like a harsh way of describing schools, which we often champion as institutions of learning and enlightenment and so forth, it’s logically true that having low insurance coverage, low coaching pay and comparatively lower salaries across the board, as well as student caseload sizes that are too large for the limited number of guidance counselors and school psychologists to effectively handle will negatively impact the quality of service that the school can provide its students.

Therefore, Jecmen’s point that Warren must improve to be competitive is completely valid.

He reasons that we must “do the best we can to keep and attract quality people due to the fact that all public schools in Illinois are funded by property taxes. This is an investment that people make in their homes, which is why they move to communities like ours and expect that quality to be reflected in their schools. And that’s where we come in – to make sure that as investors in the community, their investment is well represented and well taken care of.”

Further, despite what dramatizations may have circulated due to steps towards a teachers’ strike back in February, Dr. Ahlgrim stated that a negotiations process is “one of continual exchanges of proposals which are reviewed thoroughly and compromises made until both sides are comfortable with the ultimate agreement.”

The Board and the WTHSFT aren’t meant to be at odds, but are meant to work collaboratively to reach an outcome that benefits both sides, the students and our community.