D207 takes an axe to teacher positions. Administrative salaries are preserved.
Refusing to be held for ransom by the Maine Township Board of Education, members of the Maine Teachers Association rejected a demand that the bargained agreement be torn up and for teachers to take a salary cut.
The Board has responded with a promise to fire 75 teachers from the district’s three high schools. The cuts will be devastating to the quality of education provided to this north west Chicago suburb.
Most of the jobs cut would be of nontenured teachers across all departments, District 207 Superintendent Ken Wallace said Tuesday.
Given that Illinois denies tenure protection to teachers until they have taught full-time for four uninterrupted years in a single district, this is not overwhelming protection.
There are about 600 teachers and para-professionals in the MTA. The loss of 75 positions would reduce the staff by over 12 percent. The current contract runs through 2012.
The Maine Township board’s attitude towards administrative salaries is somewhat different than the one it takes toward teacher compensation.
Reports the Herald:
“All cost-of-living increases are frozen,” Wallace said. “We have a few of our new administrators who are on a salary adjustment, kind of like step raises.”
However, administrators will still receive merit pay based on annual performance reviews. Merit pay amounts to roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of administrators’ salaries.
“They are not increases,” Wallace explained. “That merit is part of their salary. The district, over time, has tried to make that a larger percent of their salary. We could do away with the program but what would happen is we would have to increase our base salaries for our administrators.”
So, administrators will get their money either way. Teachers on the other hand have had a gun pointed at their heads demanding either pay cuts or job cuts.
Same old same old.
