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As you may be aware, last week, the Geneva Education Association (GEA), the union that represents Geneva Community Unit School District’s approximately 450 certified teachers, initiated a formal dispute resolution process that requires both the union and the Board of Education to submit their most current offers by today (October 10) to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board (IELRB) for public posting.

We welcome the transparency of the IELRB public posting process. Today, we delivered a new proposal to the GEA for their consideration. We have also submitted this offer to the IELRB for posting and it is currently posted on our District website at this link.

The Board strongly believes in and respects our teachers. We want to compensate them fairly and competitively for their work, while operating within the financial means of the District. We take seriously our responsibility to be thoughtful and deliberate in developing a compensation and benefits package that meets the needs of our teachers and our community. In particular, we have set as a goal the desire to achieve a more competitive starting salary that allows us to effectively identify, attract and retain high-quality teachers, while also reasonably and fairly recognizing the educational attainment and experience of our current teachers.

The Board’s most recent offer to the GEA provides that, during each year of the proposed three-year contract, every teacher will receive a salary increase of $1,800—an aggregate increase of 7.8% or nearly $2.5 million over the life of the contract. Further, any teacher who successfully completes graduate level professional development will receive an additional 3 percent increase—with no limit on the number of eligible teachers.

The Board views these proposed salary increases as part of the “total compensation” paid to teachers, which includes approximately $4.6 million paid by the Board on behalf of teachers and their dependents for health, medical, dental and life insurance. Despite anticipated rising costs of these benefits, we are proposing no changes to the cost-sharing arrangements detailed in our most recent contract with the union.   

To avoid new penalties imposed by the Illinois Teacher Retirement System for retirement incentives beyond those allowed by the state system, the Board has also proposed to reduce the cap on end-of-career salary increases to 3% from 6%. 

We look forward to receiving GEA’s response to the Board’s new proposal. Please show your support of District 304 schools and students by continuing to call upon both the Board and the union to keep talking and to work in good faith under the guidance of the impartial federal mediator to achieve a contract agreement without disruption to our schools, students and families.

Sincerely,