UPDATE: Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 12:09 p.m.
Teachers and other members of the Riverside Brookfield Education Association (RBEA) at Riverside-Brookfield High School voted Monday to approve a proposed contract with the district.
“We did vote to ratify the proposed contract,” said RBEA President Wendy Cassens in an email. “I am not at liberty to share the details of the vote.”
The approval of the contract by the RBEA was first reported on Tuesday by the Clarion, the RBHS student newspaper.
The District 208 Board of Education will vote on the proposed contract at a special meeting Wednesday evening.
Neither the school board nor the RBEA have divulged any details about the proposed contract. Teachers at RBHS and other RBEA members have been working this school year without a contract. The prior five year contract expired on June 30.
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Negotiators appear to have reached a tentative contract agreement between the teachers at Riverside-Brookfield High School and the District 208 school board.
Both the school board and the Riverside Brookfield Education Association (RBEA) are expected to vote on the proposed contract next week.
The school board has scheduled two special meetings for next week. A meeting Monday night will be conducted mostly in closed session and will reportedly consist of going over the tentative contract in detail with the school board members who are not part of the negotiating team. The board has another special meeting set for Wednesday, Dec. 18. That agenda has one action item after it discusses the “collective bargaining agreement” in closed session.
The teachers and other unionized staff will have to approve the contract first before the board votes on it.
“The teachers are voting on a possible deal a day or two before [the Wednesday meeting], so it has to get through them first,” said District 208 Superintendent Kevin Skinkis. “If it gets through them, then it will make to the board on the 18th. That’s all I can share with you.”
Teachers and other union members reportedly are reviewing the proposed contract now in preparation for the vote.
School board President Matt Sinde wasn’t saying much Thursday afternoon.
“The Monday meeting is like we’ve had before where we’re updating the board and discussing the contract,” Sinde said. “We’ve had at least three or four meetings like that. We’re looking at the contract itself and reviewing it on Monday.”
The teachers and other union members at RBHS have been working the entire school year without a contract. The previous five-year contract expired on June 30.
Sinde and Garry Gryczan make up the school board’s negotiating team, aided by attorney Lynn Himes of the law firm Scariano, Himes and Petrarca.
This article has been changed. Lynn Himes is the attorney who assisted the school board in its negotiations with the teachers union.
