MENDOTA – Mendota Elementary School District 289 and Mendota Education Association were unable to come to an agreement last night during negotiations.

Today, all three elementary schools are closed.

Both sides offered a press release.

District 289 Board of Education Press Release:

This evening the entire Board of Education was present at the district office until after midnight as several offers were developed and exchanged between the board and union.  The board was very hopeful for a resolution to avoid a strike. The most recent offer was aimed at keeping the students in school, knowing that a strike has negative impact on students, staff and the community. 

In an effort to allow for additional time to work collectively between the board and the union, the board offered a one-year agreement honoring most components of the teachers recent request. The union agreed to the terms of year one, however they rejected the offer as a single-year agreement, and wished to continue bargaining tonight, only with a three year contract. 

The board offer included three areas of increases:

-           A raise of 3% in year one and a 4% raise in year two and three to the base of all teacher salaries.

-           A raise in the district paid portion of the teacher’s TRS contribution (retirement) from 2%, to 3% in year one, 4% in year two, and 5% in year three.

-           Additionally, an incremental raise in the step and lane movement on the salary schedule of 4.5% ($1,442) in year one, 4.356% ($1,452) in year two and 4.188% ($1,452) in year three. (Step is included for each year the teacher remains employed by the district, and the lane movement is for approved coursework completion; teachers may move both down and over in the matrix, receiving both raises in addition to the base raise, and TRS contribution increases ).

-           The district offered to retain the 85% district-paid family and 90% paid single medical insurance benefit

-           The components that were agreed upon up to this point by both parties during negotiations were to be retained.

Emotions and urgency were on the rise as a strike became imminent and the hour moved past midnight; the offer was the board’s attempt to honor the district’s responsibility of providing an education to the students of our community, while providing the teachers with a marked raise in pay, retirement contributions, and continuation of the generous family insurance benefit. 

The board is disappointed that the union was not open to the one year agreement, an effort to keep our students in school and our staff at work. Additionally, all offers received by the union to this point  remain the same  in the value of the step and lane increment, each of which have a substantial impact to the pay increases. 

The value of the board’s proposal far exceeds all contract agreements ever reached in this district.  The board’s proposal provides our teachers with a minimum $11,005 raise up to a $25,113 raise over the duration of the three year agreement.  This raise is i n addition  to the generous $23,000 family medical and dental insurance package offered to each teacher, of which the district pays 85%; single insurance is district-paid at 90%.    Also new to the pending

contract agreement is an increase in the provided number of sick days, and a teachers’ tuition reimbursement option for continued education. 

Unfortunately, the disruption of a strike will be felt throughout the community. We are deeply saddened that the increased offer to our teachers was not enough to avoid a strike and preserve the educational and extracurricular experiences for our students. 

The board members will continue to make themselves available to participate in negotiation discussions with the union. 

Mendota Education Association Press Release:

The Association began the evening by making significant movement in all but one language proposal.  The negotiating team offered these proposals with the intentions of trying to avoid a strike and bargain in good faith. 

The boards response to the MEA was to offer to only pay 50% of family insurance premiums for teachers hired at the start of the 2019-2020 school year.  This would mean that the twelve new teachers that were hired to start this school year as well as the three unfilled teaching positions would be left with either the option of single coverage or family insurance at 50% coverage, which would cost that employee more than $11,000 per year.  Once again, how does the district intend to recruit new teachers by reducing their current benefit package? 

In an effort to keep negotiations moving, the MEA offered another proposal, this time further reducing our TRS contribution.  In that offer, the Association dropped our TRS proposal by 6 percentage points across the 3 years of the contract. This drop in TRS decreases the cost of the current MEA contract by more than $450,000. 

At one point during our negotiations the board offered a one-year deal.  In this deal, the board offered a 1% increase to TRS and a 3% increase to the base salary.  All current TAs would remain intact and all other issues on the table would be dropped. The Association was willing to accept this offer for year 1 of the contract and continue working towards a deal for years 2 and 3. 

By the end of the meeting, the Association sent four offers, the last of which being a settlement offer, in an attempt to come to a resolution and divert a strike.  Our settlement offer met the board’s most recent proposal on both TRS contributions and base salary increases, assuming that this would alleviate the largest obstructions to a settlement.  Our settlement offer also included movement on the contribution to single insurance premiums in years 2 and 3 to offset the scale of the salary schedule.

It is regretful that the board was unwilling to come to an agreement on this matter.  We are willing to meet at any time over the course of the upcoming strike days.  How many days we are on strike is solely in the hands of the board.  We hope that a resolution will be made swiftly so as not to disrupt our community and students.