With the motivation of a June 1 deadline for state pension reforms to kick-in, teachers, school board members and the superintendent of Oak Park and River Forest High School ratified a new four-year teacher contract at a special Friday evening May 30 board meeting.
The impending state-imposed reform measures created “strange conditions” for negotiation of the contract, said John Phelan, District 200 school board president and a labor attorney by profession. Several aspects of the new contract for both faculty and Supt. Steven Isoye hinged on having a new contract ratified before that deadline. Phelan said that the deadline kept negotiations on track and created opportunities for the two sides to assist each other.
Not all school board members saw it that was as the faculty contract was approved by a 5-2 split vote. Changes to the superintendent’s contract were OKd by a narrower 4-3 margin though personal support of the superintendent was voiced by at least one board member casting a negative vote.
The teacher contract, which had already been OKd by the 233-member Faculty Senate, calls for one percent pay raises in each of the first two years of the contract. In the final two years, pay hikes will be pegged to one-half of the Consumer Price Index.
The contract also continues the salary process known as “steps and lanes,” meaning most faculty will continue to receive a set yearly increase in addition to the negotiated pay increase. Unlike merit pay where teachers are rewarded for test scores and positive classroom efforts, steps and lanes guarantees a yearly increase of around 2.5 percent.
Board members Sharon Patchak-Layman and Dr. Ralph Lee voted against the approval of the new contract.
Patchak-Layman said the contract does not relate to the district’s strategic planning process that has been in effect for the last two years since the previous teacher’s contract was passed.
“[The contract] provides no opportunity for compensation for teachers to ascend a career ladder in instructional leadership while remaining in the classroom, nor does it provide an opportunity for teachers to be compensated for their knowledge and skills,” Patchak-Layman said.
She also argued that because the contract continues the tradition of pre-retirement pay bumps of six percent for five years, the community cannot continue to afford such high costs and the board should not be concerned with pensions because of recent state efforts to enact pension reform.
Board President John Phelan disagreed and said the board was very focused on taxpayer perspectives.
“I will just express my appreciation for the bargaining teams on both the district side and the faculty side,” Phelan said. “I think there is a great deal of cooperation and respect.”
In a later interview Phelan defended the contract as positive and realistic. “This contract lives in the world that’s there, not the world that I might want to be there.” While he expressed support for concepts such as merit pay and eliminating the steps and lanes structure, he said, “That’s not what the marketplace is right now. On breakthroughs like that a district is going to pay a huge premium somehow. I don’t want to be the first district. I want to be the second or third.”
Phelan said the district will be able to accomplish the progressive changes it wants to make through cooperation with the faculty. He said measures to improve student achievement could be included in a collective bargaining agreement but that it might prove costly. “Our faculty is open to change. If you go to collective bargaining for (issues included in the strategic plan) it is like going to the hardware store for milk.”
Since no members of the Faculty Senate were present at the meeting, there was no report as to what percentage of the faculty voted for the new contract.
“It was ratified,” Supt. Isoye said. “Beyond that, we do not have any specifics.”
In a statement released by the school, Paul Noble, the Faculty Senate’s lead negotiator, said, “I’m gratified that the district and the faculty have come to an agreement that balances our financial responsibility to the community with an acknowledgement of the faculty’s hard work, the sacrifices made in the previous contract – two years of hard freeze/soft freeze, and the possible ramifications of Illinois’ pension crisis.”
Regarding the contract extension for the superintendent, the board voted 4-3 to approve the new five-year contract. Joining Layman and Lee with their second dissent of the evening was Tom Cofsky.
“While I support the work of the superintendent, I cannot support this contract,” he said. “Additionally, our superintendent is in a position from a pension standpoint that is very lucrative and I do not feel that adjustments in that are necessary now.”
Phelan said the new contract for Isoye was largely aimed at adjustments which take into account changes under the state pension reform law.
“We’ve corrected it in order to provide … pay increases that we anticipate the superintendent is going to enjoy and leaves plenty of room for us to further incent the superintendent with bonus or other pay to the extent that his performance merits in the future,” he said.
Board member Dr. Jackie Moore said the board is acting rationally with the new superintendent salary contract.
“Everyone is trying to think of ways to support valued employees,” she said. “At no time have I ever felt that I was taking my eye off of any issues regarding the students or this community as a board member.”
Patchak-Layman said looking out for the top school official does not set a good tone for the rest of the staff, especially when the superintendent is already the district’s top paid employee.
“[I] am very disappointed that we spent much time having to work on it when we have students that need that kind of energy and thought and that they were not in the forefront of any of these conversations.”
Isoye thinks the new contract will help advance change for OPRF.
“The contract as I see it is really that the board supports the work I have been doing,” he said. “A lot of the work that they’re going to make sure that I’m in charge of moving forward is in the strategic plan.”
Dan Haley contributed reporting to this article.
