Good evening. I’m Mark Luthin, President of the Belvidere Education Association. As you are aware, the BEA is bargaining a new contract with the School District. It was my hope that at tonight’s school board meeting, you would be voting on a new contract, after the teachers had already ratified it last Monday. Unfortunately, that vote didn’t happen last Monday, and it won’t happen tonight, either. It won’t happen because after a summer of bargaining sessions, 10 sessions in all, the BEA requested mediation. Last fall the board adopted a strategic plan. One aspect of the strategic plan included attracting and retaining high quality teachers, and to “increase interest in extra-curricular activities”. We wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy. After visiting with over 70 new teachers the other day, it seems that we are able to attract new teachers. But the question remains, will you be able to retain them? We had 56 resignations last summer, and another 32 this summer. Historically we have had resignations numbering in the 20’s. But the last 2 years have brought an unprecedented number of resignations. You need to ask yourselves, why are so many people leaving our district? What is the cost in time and money to constantly train new teachers? The BEA proposed a solid intervention and enrichment plan for our students, one that does not have them leaving their social studies or science classes at the elementary level, or their encore classes at the middle school level. We also proposed to have the district pay elementary teachers that sponsor clubs, which also aligns with your strategic plan. Rather than seeing a commitment from the district on these valuable, student-centered programs, what we have seen is that you would rather pay the board’s attorney over $11,000, just in June and July, to bargain this contract. How many kids could have enrichment or interventions for that amount of money? How many clubs could we sponsor? We have 30 students in lab classes that are designed for 24, and because of that have some major safety concerns in these overcrowded labs. We are also asking for language that would ensure that the district is compliant with current Special Ed class size law, even if that law changes. Our students with special needs deserve nothing less. Last year the board closed Kishwaukee School, and made other cuts in anticipation of a budget shortfall. In fact, even after these cuts were made, there was a projected $2.3M shortfall. A year after this Perfect Storm we kept hearing about, we find that the district actually made over $6M. Folks, that’s over an $8M swing. The year before, the district RIFed teachers, eliminated librarians and made other cuts to the budget. Even after that, the budget shortfall was projected to be over $5.6M. Guess what? The district again ended in the black by over $400K. That’s over a $6M swing. The year before we saw another increase in the ed. fund to the tune of $344,000, a swing of $6.3M over the anticipated shortfall. We have money, and we keep making more. The district can afford the proposals that have been made. Ladies and gentlemen, these are your schools. And these are your kids we’re working for. But, you know something, these are our schools too, and these are our kids, and we’re working hard and will continue to work hard, for their future.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 02:23:02 +0000