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Q&A

Why are the Harlem School District Certified Staff on Strike?
3x5, 5x5: What are the issues?
What about the Board's salary proposals quoted in the paper?
Area salary comparisons
Downloads
Contact information

Click here for a a Q & A from the parent meeting on Sunday, August 26th.

• Teachers offered a proposal to get students back in school Friday.
  
  The union's proposal offered to send teachers back to school before the 24 hour period teachers need to vote on a tentative agreement. Even though the district can afford the proposal on the table, the administration did not accept the offer.
  
  
• The union was ready to negotiate in April.
  
  The teachers tried to have conversation throughout the summer. Negotiations didn't start until June. Teachers didn't receive a detailed health insurance proposal until Wednesday, August 22nd, the second day of the strike. The
  teachers wanted to avoid a strike for the sake of our kids.
  
  
• Over 120 teachers have left the district in the last three years.
  
  The teachers' proposal would help address this problem by making salaries more competitive with the surrounding area. Harlem must be able to recruit and retain quality teachers. The Harlem community deserves a stable school system.
  
  
• Harlem has the lowest salaries when compared to area schools.
  
  Teacher salaries are higher in Rockford, North Boone, Belvidere, Rockton, Prairie Hill, and Hononegah. Harlem teachers are not asking to be the best paid teachers. We just want to keep our good teachers.
  
  
• Teachers took a pay freeze and sacrificed for Harlem schools.
  
  Teachers didn't keep up with the cost of living as they agreed to 0%, 1% and 1.5% increases in the last contract. Teachers' health insurance costs went up 33% over that 3-year time period.
  
  
• The school district is in great financial shape and teachers aren't asking for anything that would jeopardize that.
  
  The district has admitted they have $10 million surplus. They will also receive millions in new state aid this year. The district has consistently underestimated the amount of money coming in and they have over estimated their costs. That's how they went from a deficit to such a large surplus in only 3 years.
  
  
• Prior to DeLuca’s arrival (the Harlem Superintendent), there was labor peace. DeLuca has been here for three contract negotiations that have resulted in 3 strikes.
  
  Prior to the school board hiring Pat DeLuca as Harlem's Superintendent, Harlem teachers had not had a strike in fifteen years.

This strike was avoidable. The teachers feel it should have never taken place. We want to get back to work. Please contact the school board and help us build a stable positive environment for your children.

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3x5, 5x5: What are the issues?

The 3x5 and the 5x5 refer to the salary schedules that teachers are placed on. Teachers hired prior to 2004 on are on the 5x5; teachers hired after 2004 and thereafter were hired on the 3x5. The difference between the two schedules lies in how you calculate experience and additional education. On the 5x5 schedule, you take 5% of the starting teacher amount (in 2006-07 it was 31114) and add that 5% amount to each salary cell based on experience and/or additional education.

For example, in 2006-2007, a teacher with a Master’s degree and 5 years of experience on the 5x5 schedule would have made $43,451. The 3x5 uses 3% as the calculator for experience, so the teacher with the same amount of experience and education on the 3x5 schedule made $40,968. As a teacher gets more experience in the District, the differences widen and the teachers on the 3x5 make less.

Why this is important:

Since all new teachers to the District are being placed on the 3x5 schedule, they are losing money when compared to if they were placed on the other schedule. Because of this, new teachers in very large numbers are leaving the District for surrounding areas and making $5000-$7000 more per year.

In a recent newspaper article where the District quoted salary figures, The District did not give the entire picture. They posted that a Master’s teacher with 4 years experience would make $42,003; however, teachers on the 3x5 would be placed at $37,389. They posted that a Master’s teacher with 10 years of experience and 32 additional credit hours would make $57,560, but a teacher on the 3x5 schedule would make $50,992.

This is misleading -- the District is trying to tell the community that these are amounts that actual teachers are making based on these levels of education and experience. Teachers on the 3x5 will not be making these amounts. The District is artificially inflating their "costs" to the public.

Again, all new teachers to the District are placed on the 3x5 schedule and the longer they stay on that schedule, the less they receive. Our contention is that experience and education attainment should account for much more than it is. I know Dr. DeLuca continues to state that the teachers agreed to the 3x5 three years ago -- and they did, but that was when the District had a $5 million deficit. Now, they sit on a $10+ million surplus.

The Union is in NO WAY saying that we deserve all of that money -- we are simply saying that when the teachers took a hit from 2004-2007 on these schedules in assisting the District to get financial stability, the District should now address what they had done. The 3x5 has had disastrous effects on the District, namely in terms of destabilizing the teaching force. Teachers are coming into the District for 1-2 years, getting experience, and then leaving for other Districts. Harlem has become a training ground for teachers to move to other districts, and this lack of stability will hurt the District. This 3x5 schedule has eliminated the idea of teachers coming into the District and staying here for their careers. Again, no stability. Harlem is losing many, many excellent teachers -- for example, the high school hired 36 new teachers for 07-08, but only 8 retired. The community needs to ask, "Why this is happening?" And we feel Dr. DeLuca has turned a blind eye to this significant problem.

Harlem teachers on the 3x5 schedule -- again, all the NEW teachers to the District since 2004 -- are the LOWEST paid at the Bachelor’s Level and Master’s Level when compared to other surrounding Districts. Belvidere, North Boone, Hononegah, Rockford, Rockton, Prairie Hill -- they all pay more for their teachers, and these are the Districts which teachers have been leaving for.

We are here for the kids, and we are working to get them back in the classroom as soon as possible. By also taking the position we did (and the decision to strike was not taken lightly by any means), we are working and fighting for what is best for the kids and community -- to attract and keep qualified teachers in the District. The 3x5 is simply not doing it.

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What about the Board's salary proposals quoted in the paper?

1. Entry level pay according to the Board’s most recent proposal for 2007-08 is $32,110, not the $33,073 in the newspaper; for 2008-09 it would be $33,137 not $35,125; for 2009-2010 it would be $34,132 not $37,275.

2. Harlem has a two-tiered salary schedule and the District is picking and choosing which information from which schedule they want to use -- a 4th year Master’s teacher on the 3x5 schedule made $37,389 in 2006-2007, not $42,003 as they state; a Master’s teacher on their 10th year with 32 additional educational credits made $50,992 in 2006-07, not $57,560 as they state.

3. The Union’s proposal on August 22 was realistic, reasonable and affordable. In addition, if agreement was reached, the Union guaranteed that the students would have been back in school on Friday. With this guarantee, the Union was moving off of their stance to not start school until a contract was ratified. The District responded to our proposal by simply rejecting half of its contents, unwilling to even engage in cooperative and collaborative discussion.

4. Prior to DeLuca’s arrival (the Harlem Superintendent), there was labor peace. DeLuca has been here for three contract negotiations that have resulted in 3 strikes.

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Downloadable Information

Please click here for a downloadable version of the fact sheet that we have been distributing to the community.

I am a Taxpayer, too: an employee of the Harlem School District -- who is also a taxpayer -- writes an open letter to members of the Harlem community.

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Salary Comparisons are based on the 2006-2007 Illinois State Board of Education Salary Study.
BA = Bachelor's Degree
MA = Master's Degree
*Harlem falls lowest on each of the comparisons, except for MA Start -- and there, it falls second lowest.

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Please Get in Touch

We encourage you to contact the Harlem School Board with your questions, comments and concerns about the ongoing negotiations process. Please click here to contact them via their web site's email form.

We also encourage you to contact the HFT with your questions, comments and concerns about the ongoing negotiations process. Please click here to contact us via our web site's email form.

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Parent & Community Member Updates

Posted 8/27/07

The union negotiations team will be meeting with the board negotiations team on Monday, August 27th at 1:00 PM. The mediator will not be present.

Posted 8/26/07

On Sunday, August 26th, several Harlem teachers and staff met with parents and members of the community to discuss the strike and to field questions and hear concerns from the community. Please click here for a report on the meeting.

Posted 8/23/07

There will be an informational meeting with Harlem teachers for parents on Sunday, August 26th at 3:00 P.M. at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #9759, 2018 Windsor Road, Loves Park IL.

Posted 8/22/07

The federal mediator for the negotiations process has ordered a "cooling off" period for the negotiations process, after Wednesday's negotiations again came to an impasse.

Agreement was reached on several items during Wednesday's meeting, however, still at issue is the board's refusal to even discuss options for phasing out a salary schedule that drives quality teachers away from the District.

Though the mediator will stay in touch with both sides, no further meetings have been scheduled.

We encourage you to contact the Harlem School Board with your questions, comments and concerns about the ongoing negotiations process. Please click here to contact them via their web site's email form.

We also encourage you to contact the HFT with your questions, comments and concerns about the ongoing negotiations process. Please click here to contact us via our web site's email form.