Union reaches collective bargaining agreement with District 58

The Downers Grove Grade School District 58 board approved a new, three-year collective bargaining agreement with the Downers Grove Elementary Education Association at its regular meeting June 10.

The contract was approved in a unanimous vote. The teachers’ union ratified the agreement on June 4 with a large majority of members voting in favor. The new contract increases the base salary for teachers by an average of 2.85% over three years with additional raises realized by some teachers based upon their advancement on the salary schedule, which will average 4.5% in the first year.

Key topics and resolutions from the negotiations included:

• Retirement: Increased retirement incentive to 4.5% raises for the last years, up from 3% but below the 6% state cap.
• Salary: Ensured salary increases align with the Consumer Price Index and projected revenue growth, with a 2.15% increase in year one, 3.15% in year two and 3.25% in year three. When factoring in the step increases in the teachers’ salary schedule, the average raise in year one is 4.40%, 5.40% in year two and 5.50% in year three.
• After-School Meeting Time/Professional Working Hours: Discussed the desire to find more after-school time to schedule meetings. Teachers can leave the school/building if there are no planned meetings outside student attendance hours.
• Teacher Plan Time: Updated language to protect teacher plan time and provide compensation or replacement time if missed due to a crisis, reflecting current practices.
• Recruitment and Graduate Credit Hours: District 58 will develop a list of “hard-to-fill” positions and honor up to nine years of public education service, placing an individual on Step 10 of the salary schedule. Additionally, a master’s degree would be defined as 36 graduate credit hours for salary schedule placement.
• Support for Behavioral Needs: Updated language to reflect current practices in crisis support, planning and training for behavioral intervention.
• Salary Schedule Advancement: Agreed to prior notification for starting degree programs and agreed to form a committee to develop criteria for ascertaining master’s program quality. Salary lane changes were limited to one per year.
• Parental Leave: Ensured flexibility for unpaid leave between four weeks and one year, with insurance costs incurred by employees after 12 weeks.
• Stipend Structure: Created a new structure for paying stipends, which will be tied to a percentage of the starting teacher’s salary. This provision will be reviewed within the year in light of the middle schools’ new athletic conference.
• Insurance: Removed the sliding scale for family insurance for those with the HSA plan, as the 80% employee cost had affected teacher recruitment and restricted new employees to the HSA plan.

The contract included more than 559 certified staff members, including teachers and other educational specialists, such as speech pathologists and reading specialists.