McHenry District 156 teachers union approves contract; school to resume Tuesday

McHENRY – School is officially back in session Tuesday for about 2,600 McHenry high school students after a long-disputed teachers contract was ratified by the union Monday afternoon.

The McHenry Community High School Educators' Association voted favorably on a contract after a seven-school-day strike and numerous negotiation sessions with the school board. The McHenry Community High School District 156 Board will vote on the contract at its Oct. 19 meeting.

“I feel very much relieved,” said Gary Kinshofer, lead negotiator for the McHenry Community High School District 156 school board. “I’m excited to get back to business as usual, to get the kids back in school, to get some normalcy back into everybody’s lives, and to let the community start healing.”

Throughout the negotiations, at times contentious, the two sides remained at odds over teacher compensation, specifically the salary schedule structure. Insurance contributions after the 4.5 percent increase in premiums also was a point of debate.

Both the union and the school board had to bend in order to reach an agreement, Kinshofer and union spokeswoman Heidie Dunn said.

“There was actually a lot of movement on both sides,” Dunn said.

Details of the accepted proposal had not yet been made available as of Monday afternoon, but from Kinshofer’s perspective, neither side got exactly what it wanted.

“I think the true definition of negotiating is nobody leaves extremely happy, but nobody leaves completely upset either,” he said. “I think it’s a good contract for the district and the teachers going forward.

“Each side accomplished some of their goals, but no one got all of their goals.”

While the parties engaged in hours of negotiations over the last week and a half, it’s the students who have been left without class, extracurriculars, or co-curricular activities while others throughout the county went about their school year as usual.

The McHenry football team was forced to forfeit its Oct. 9 homecoming game against Dundee-Crown High School, and the homecoming dance has been pushed back a week. In addition, students missed another football game, the boys and girls golf postseason, along with events for swimming, girls tennis, cross country and boys soccer. Members of the marching band also had to forgo their last major competition.

On the academic side, Dunn, who teaches English and theater, said many teachers have been taking stock of lessons that have been missed.

It’s still unclear how the district will address the seven missed days – whether the days will come out of summer break or another block of time – however, it is laid out in the contract that all seven days will be made up.

A school district's funding can be affected if the district does not fulfill the 180-day minimum calendar requirement, according to a statement from the Illinois State Board of Education.

The school board and union will have to meet in the near future to decide how the time will be made up, Dunn said.

“In the meantime, I’ve been trying to look at what we’ve missed to try to work it in," she said.

The strike, which began Oct. 1, was the first the district saw in 30 years.