MAHOMET– The Mahomet Seymour Education Association (MSEA) filed its intent to strike with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board (IELRB) on Friday. Once the intent is posted to the IELRB website, MSEA can legally go on strike after 10 days. This comes after MSEA members overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike on Thursday.
Tonight, MSEA plans to pack the Mahomet Seymour Community Unit School District 3 Board of Education (BOE) meeting. Parents and community members are planning to speak, as well as the MSEA president.
“Unfortunately, we are still not where we need to be at the negotiations table. The district continues to push for more instructional time, despite having no feedback from parents on the impact of changing the start and end times of their students’ school day,” MSEA spokesperson and high school teacher Cam Zindars said. “They also remain unwilling to discuss class size limits, which we believe are imperative to ensuring our students get the attention and support they need.”
MSEA has been bargaining a new contract with the BOE since March and entered mediation on Aug. 10. The current MSEA contract expired on June 30, and MSEA members are now working without a contract.
“We love this community. In fact, I went to school here. I graduated from the high school I now teach at, and I’m a Mahomet taxpayer. It doesn’t get more invested than that. We want what’s best for our students and our community and that includes attracting and retaining talented educators and staff,” Zindars said.
There are still several issues that need to be resolved at the bargaining table, including:
- Teacher-directed, collaborative plan time: The district administration wants to make changes to teachers’ planning time. MSEA is pushing to keep their plan time as it is, so teachers can continue to determine how to best meet their students’ needs. Teachers use their plan time to put together lessons, meet with parents and grade assignments.
- Health insurance: The BOE is not being realistic about how rapidly health insurance costs are increasing. MSEA is trying to ensure there is enough money applied to premiums that we don’t end up going backwards financially.
- Wages: According to an MSEA internal survey, the majority of District 3 teachers and staff have considered leaving the district in the last five years, mainly due to financial reasons. Mahomet-Seymour teachers’ salaries are lagging behind several nearby districts including Taylorville, Mount Zion and Urbana. Starting wages for bus drivers are so low the district is struggling to hire the new drivers we desperately need.
“When it comes to wages, we are not asking for anything the district can’t afford. There’s no way we’d do that. We’re part of this community, too. But what I can tell you is if we don’t do something soon, we won’t have bus drivers to safely transport our students to and from school. We will lose our dedicated teachers to neighboring districts that pay more money, and our administration will continue to give themselves raises at the expense of everyone else,” Zindars said.
MSEA represents more than 250 teachers, counselors, bus drivers, classroom aides, office personnel, custodians and librarians serving the 3,400 students in Mahomet-Seymour CUSD 3.
On Mon., Sept. 21, at 6:30 p.m., the BOE will be meeting in the board room at Middletown Prairie Elementary School (1301 Bulldog Dr., Mahomet). The MSEA asks that community members come to the meeting, wear red and show their support for the teachers and staff trying to settle a fair contract.
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The 135,000 member Illinois Education Association (IEA-NEA) is the state’s largest union. IEA represents PreK-12 teachers outside the city of Chicago and education support staff, higher education faculty, retired education employees and students preparing to become teachers, statewide.
