Students of the Kewanee School District Unit #229 didn’t let a little rain dampen their return to classes after the summer break. At Central School, students congregated on the playground waiting to line up to begin the 2023-24 school year.
The school year is underway in spite of no contract being reached between the school board and the teachers union. The hope from the union was that a contract would be in place before the start of the school year.
A key issue in the contract negotiations appears to be teacher salaries, which the Kewanee Education Association (KEA) maintains have not kept pace with other Illinois school districts.
A statement released last week by the Kewanee Board of Education, contended that past contracts, agreed on by both sides, “uses a different model of teacher salary increases which enabled the board to competitively raise the starting teacher salary, an increase that was similar to other districts in (the) area.”
In a statement from the KEA, a spokesperson, Jennifer Vickrey, said that over the last five years, teacher salaries in Illinois increased by $11,000. In that same time frame, she said, the KEA’s average teacher salary increased by less than half of that.
The KEA worries that bringing “talented new educators” on board and then ‘retaining the quality experienced ones’ will be a challenge unless teacher pay is competitive with other area districts.
The board, in the statement, said “it is confident that mediation will lead to a financially responsible and sustainable contract.”
Vickery said that the union’s concern is the best interest of both the students and the community.
“We do all of this because we love our students. Most of us have been working in the district for years. Many of us live in Kewanee and have kids who go to school in the district. We want what’s best for our entire community,” she said.
KEA represents more than 200 teachers, counselors, bus drivers, classroom aides, secretaries, cafeteria workers and serves the district’s more than 2,000 students.
There has been no public announcement as to further negotiations between the two sides.
