The Oak Park District 97 Board of Education voted unanimously at its July 7 meeting to accept a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Oak Park Teachers Association (OPTA) regarding a change in stipend pay for teachers who facilitate extracurricular, and summer, activities.
The vote marks what appears to be a resolution to a rather heated issue that came to a head in June. That month, after the stipends didn’t show up during a May pay period, some teachers engaged in a subtle act of protest — they showed up to school dressed in black. According to one teacher speaking on the issue anonymously at the time, even teachers who didn’t receive stipends wore the color in solidarity.
According to former D97 superintendent Al Roberts, the stipends weren’t paid because district staff was trying to clarify pay discrepancies. Some teachers, he said, were getting paid more than others for doing the same amount of work.
During a May 5 board meeting, Roberts mentioned a pay discrepancy identified in the OPTA contract “between the district’s extended school year (ESY), prep for success and math enrichment summer programs,” according to a May 26 Wednesday Journal article.
“[We] thought that the amount of time [spent] on ESY was less than the amount of time spent on [prep for success],” Roberts said. “Both spend 80 hours, which is a difference in pay, actually an inequality, [which] we’d like to get squared away. Both of them should be a stipend of $3,000. Right now, [ESY] is listed [at $2,400].”
Roberts also noted that the math enrichment program “should’ve been a lower tier and that was listed at $3,000.”
The recently approved MOU reflects those changes to the 2014-18 collective bargaining agreement. D97 Board President Robert Gates, who was absent, did not vote on the matter.
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com