Poll Results on Teacher Pay Split

A slim majority of Patch readers responding to our latest poll about the level of pay for teachers at do not think the District 115 Board of Education should keep the educators at the top of the North Shore pay scale.

Of the 30 people responding to the unscientific survey, 13 want the local high school teaches to be at or near the top rung of the ladder while 17 do not think it is necessary.

The Lake Forest Education Association (LFEA) teachers’ union and the Board have been locked in negotiations over a new contract for the faculty. Everyone in the community will know the position of both sides no later than August 24 .

By law, once an impasse is declared, both sides must make their best offer public within 14 days. There can be no work stoppage for another 14 days. However no strike can take place unless the LFEA issues a notice of intent to strike. No such action has been taken.

One reader, Caryllon Huggins, was happy to see the pay rates in neighboring communities and realizes both sides have a point. “The nation is in an education crisis in my view, however we are also in financial reorganization and all facts must be revealed and community needs to be informed,” she writes.

Another reader, Roger Billings, takes the teachers to task for their demands even though the educators have not yet made their position public.

“Feeling a wee bit petulant those naughty Board members wouldn't let you union members take another huge bite of flesh out of the taxpayers,” Billings writes. “You would probably call them statesmen if they gave in to your obscene demands.”

Linda Biondi, who writes she is a teacher, defends the hard work she and others do while taking critics to task.

“We teachers work unbelievably hard (and work all summer at it!) to get our children to achieve at high levels, and become productive, contributing members of society,” Biondi writes. “Teachers are not the bad guys. Not sure when the need to attack them began.”

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