North Shore teachers, community members to rally for a fair contract

HIGHLAND PARK – Today, the North Shore Education Association (NSEA) and community members will rally for a fair contract. The rally comes after negotiations stalled with North Shore School District 112. NSEA members have been working without a contract.

“The Board and the NSEA continue to lack agreement on major issues including plan time, salary, course approval and lane advancement,” NSEA President Sheri Henkel said. “Since March, we have given detailed explanations of daily teacher responsibilities, both inside and outside of the school day, but this topic continues to fall on deaf ears. If the board gets its way – we will have less time to plan for individual students’ needs, less time to communicate with parents, less time to collaborate with other teachers and less time to prepare materials.”

NSEA has 385 members. The association requested to begin bargaining for a fair contract in March. NSEA’s contract expired on Aug. 14. District 112 serves 3,964 students.

“The environment in our schools is unstable,” Henkel said. “In the past 10 years, we’ve had six superintendents, 54 teachers were laid off and two schools were closed. Additional school closures still loom in our future. As our superintendent has stated, ‘We are not broke. We are broken.’ We need to do the right thing for our students and fix the system.”

NSEA members, parents, students and community members will rally before the board of education meeting set for today, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. The rally will be held on the front lawn of the district office in Highland Park (1936 Green Bay Rd.) today at 6:30 p.m.

###

The 135,000 member Illinois Education Association (IEA-NEA) is the state’s largest education employee’s organization. IEA represents preK-12 teachers outside of the city of Chicago and education support staff, higher education faculty, retired education employees and students preparing to become teachers, statewide.

Press Release
Media Contact

Bridget Shanahan
Media Relations Director
bridget.shanahan@ieanea.org
708.341.4361