Comments on: Teachers’ strike a black eye for community

By: Tina

Tina — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:26:52 +0000

Did anyone tell the dozen that they couldn’t speak? Just like Nazi’s marched in Skokie, free speech is a part of our society. I admit it comes with great cost, both personally and professionally, but a dozen teachers our of a group this large? I think the bigger issue is that we have a so much mistrust in the district…and I think there is enough blame for that to go around.

By: VeryModest

VeryModest — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:56:30 +0000

I think the bigger black eye comes from the fact that it took the board and its negotiation team 11 months to reach a settlement with the teachers in which the teachers received only a .5% increase in both the second and the third years of the contract. No increase was taken/given in the first or fourth year of the contract. Then consider that it took the board less than 2 weeks after settlement with the teachers to give the “interim” Superintendent a 21% raise over this year retro back to January and next year along with extending his interim contract for a 3rd year. Where is the public outrage over this tiny little fact that while mentioned in the news was quickly and quietly buried. Shouldn’t we be comparing the superintendents wage and increase to the “average workers” in Rockford as they did with the teachers? I don’t know how many of the “average workers” in Rockford got that kind of wage increase and based on the fact that the Superintendent caused the first teacher strike in 28 years. Now that is job performance at its best.

By: John

John — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:14:01 +0000

Ms. Kaczmarek, to answer your questions:

The teachers could not have voted via the internet. They needed to hear the updates and ask questions before making such a serious decision.

Also, the school district would not allow the REA to use any of the school buildings for a meeting.

RPS205 would not have agreed to binding arbitration because they lost their shirts the last time, in 1984, that they agreed to it.

By: John

John — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:08:55 +0000

Those teachers weren’t all against the strike. Some of them voted no because the teachers weren’t going out on strike the next day instead of waiting until Thursday.

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:01:31 +0000

There would not have been a strike if the Board had not wanted one. The Board kept walking out of negotiations. Talk to some teachers. The Board put out a lot of misleading information. Among all the teachers only 12 out of over 1,600 voted not to strike. That says a lot. An arbitrator was involved for many months. The union did not manipulate the teachers. The teachers were completely with a very few exceptions behind the union.

To be threatened was wrong and should never happen, but that was 40 years ago. Times, I hope, have changed.