District 205 and Galesburg teachers are close to a contract after the Galesburg Education Association approved a new two-year contract on Tuesday night.The final piece of the deal would be the 205 Board’s approval at a special meeting this upcoming Monday, Aug.19.
Alicia Condreay was chief negotiator for the GEA and says while few of the players remained from the last round of negotiations, everyone came to the table this time determined to be civil and come up with a contract that works for students, staff and the financial viability of the district.
“From the very first meeting when we were all sitting at the table together, we kind of threw out the ‘s’ word meaning and strike said, ‘we’re not going to talk about that. We’re going to move forward’ and everyone agreed that was in the past and we were going to leave it there,” Condreay says. “And our goal was to make sure we had a contract before the start of school.”
She says when there were points of contention, they worked them out face to face, without a professional mediator or other outside interventions.
That was probably made easier by the fact that no one on the 205 Board or Board office administration in office now, was in there position 4-years ago and very few GEA executives remained.
Few details are known about the contract the board still needs to approve, but the Board’s chief negotiator Wayne Statham says what they worked out is in the best interest “District 205 students and the financial stability” and Condreay agrees.
Condreay says the reason the contract is 2-years this time, following a 4-year contract last time, has less to do with the GEA or Board and more to do with the state of Illinois.
“We’re hoping the three-percent cap for the teacher retirement system could possibly be repealed and we don’t want to lock ourselves into anything long-term in case that does happen,” Condreay says.
Condreay says in presenting the information to GEA members Tuesday, she went through 120 line items, more than has ever been part of a GEA contract presentation.
