The District 153 school board approved a three-year contract with the Homewood Education Association (HEA) at the Monday, Dec. 16, board meeting.
The contract includes wage increases of 5% for the 2025-26 year, and 4.5% in both 2026-27 and 2027-28 years, with additional money toward insurance costs. Contract language also gave teachers the ability to add days to a sick bank and gave union representatives eight days to do union business rather than using personal days.
The two bargaining teams used Interest Based Bargaining to reach the contract. HEA representatives were Carey Sullivan, Lisa Wendt, Colleen Spain, Katie Kvasnicka, Cathy Jones, George Santiago and Crystal Gladney. Representing the district were Superintendent Scott McAlister, Chief School Business Official Eric Trimberger, and board members Alex Bosch, Broderick Booth and Shelly Marks. Rather than each side presenting a demand and using that as a starting point, Interest Based Bargaining brings both sides to the table to reach mutual agreement on items.
The bargaining teams met for approximately 100 hours over five weekends spending about six hours Fridays, eight to 10 hours on Saturdays and then regrouping for their own meetings among team members.
HEA also had the challenge of negotiating for every school employee because the union represents all District 153 employees.
“You’re looking out for the computer people, the cafeteria people, the secretaries, the custodians, specialists and then the teachers,” said HEA President Tom Jaminski.
“The really amazing thing that I witnessed was the HEA members that sat in that room did not advocate for themselves. They advocated for every staff member and what was best for the entire staff,” said Shelly Marks, president of the school board. She said both sides acknowledged that “if it’s good for the staff it is good for the students. That is the approach we all took.”
Side memos improved the language of the contract for HEA members. One major step was the ability to bank sick days, said HEA President Tom Jaminski. Staff can bank four of the eight sick days allocated each year. Retiring teachers with accumulated sick days can designate as many as 170 days to the sick bank.
“It’s an incredible thing for moms who took FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) or staff members that are battling cancer or other diseases,” Jaminski said. “This is a nice gift for those teachers who have used up all their sick days, but have been a loyal employee in 153. This is huge for a lot of people.”
McAlister said the district was “keenly aware, in light of the economy the past several years, that we needed to maintain our competitiveness with our neighbors, especially, while also being cognizant of our tax levy. We made a commit to our community that we were going to do everything in our power to protect their dollars and use them as wisely as possible. We feel great about the contract, but also confident we have in place plans to move forward to keep the district financially solvent for years to come.”
