• 9AM TUESDAY, DEC. 11, UPDATE

Geneva School District 304 and the Geneva Education Association have reached an agreement on a five-year contract — and students will be back in school on Tuesday.

The two sides returned to the bargaining table Sunday (Dec. 9, 2018) and met for more than 12 hours under the guidance of an independent federal mediator.

“We are happy to announce that at 3:22 this morning, the board and the GEA have reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year collective bargaining agreement,” the District 304 website said.

The GEA voted to endorse the agreement, allowing school to open again today (Tuesday, Dec. 11.)

Information on ratification and details will follow, and Kane County Connects will update this article when more information is available.

The District 304 Board of Education will convene later this week to vote on the agreement.

The School Board and GEA met for five hours on Saturday as well as the Sunday-to-Monday-morning marathon, hoping to end a teachers strike that started Tuesday, Dec. 4.

During the Saturday session, the board and the GEA each presented a new salary model they believed represented a compromise in that it was a combination of the models each side promoted.

“The board’s proposal blends the models of both sides and provides higher salaries for more experienced teachers in response to the interests of the union, while maintaining higher starting salaries for beginning teachers,” the School Board said in an earlier news release.

Background

There was no school Friday, as the teachers strike continued in its fourth day.

The union represents about 450 teachers. District 304 includes nine schools and serves the district’s 5,800 students.

According to the District 304 website, the School Board and the union exchanged preliminary proposals Thursday night, which did not lead to an agreement.

According to a previous post on the District 304 website, teacher compensation, particularly salaries, continue to be the focus of negotiations.

By law, salaries for public employees, including public school teachers, administrators and staff, is considered public information. By law, salaries for Geneva 304 teachers and administrators are posted to the district’s website annually.

The board’s previous proposal, which was delivered to the GEA prior to the strike on Dec. 4, provided more than $5.5 million or a 17.69 percent increase in new money for teacher compensation as calculated across all staff member increases.

That represents an increase of between $9,567 and $12,949 for an individual full-time teacher who is on the salary schedule over the life of the proposed four-year contract, according to District 304 officials.

The School Board is posting the projected salary increases each full-time teacher would experience under the board’s proposal. This posting shows the salary increase under the board’s proposal for each teacher, for each year of the four-year contract offer. Staff members would be eligible to receive compensation in addition to these projections for educational advancement.

• Click this link for the most recent information from School District 304.
• Click this link for the most recent information from the Geneva Education Association.

The status of the schools’ re-opening is now day to day.

Kane County Connects will update this article when more information is available.

SOURCE: Geneva School District 304 and GEA websites

• FEATURE PHOTO CREDIT: GEA website