Right now, there’s a crucial struggle about to unfold in the Illinois Legislature that will impact every staff member, student, and family in Chicago’s schools. It’s about the struggle for fair, informed, and intelligent decision-making in Chicago Public School policy. One of the primary venues for school policy-making is the negotiation of union contracts and yet, the issue has generated almost no headlines despite its urgency and importance.
Contrary to what some believe, principals and teachers' unions are separate entities. Chicago’s principals and assistant principals are not part of the teachers' union and are not covered by the CTU contract negotiations you may have heard about in the news. Before 2023, principals did not even have the right to bargain for a contract. As a result, CPS policy has been made in large part between school board officials responsible for the entire school district and teachers who are responsible for individual classrooms. The principals and assistant principals responsible for running the schools have been left out of the policy negotiation landscape.
That could all change for the better now that the state legislature has given bargaining rights to Chicago’s principals, but there is one key problem: When principals petitioned the legislature for bargaining rights, they made it absolutely clear they wanted to be a source of stability for schools, so they voluntarily wrote a no-strike clause into the legislation that gave them union bargaining rights. Obviously, principals wanted a very different kind of labor union than what had become the norm in CPS.
Here is where the problem lies: Without the right to strike, a union loses one of its most powerful sources of leverage in bargaining. To offset this, our legislature grants unions that cannot strike (think police and firefighters) another equivalent and very powerful right: the right to a final, binding decision from a neutral arbitrator who has the authority to settle disagreements between the union and the employer.
Unfortunately, our principals are the only union members in our state who do not have the right to strike and do not have the right to a binding decision from a neutral arbitrator. All union members either have the right to strike or the right to binding arbitration. Principals have neither right. Without a neutral arbitrator, management can play a waiting game and then implement a flawed offer without the approval of the principals and their union, The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association (CPAA).
The Background
It is important to understand what drove principal and assistant principals to petition the legislature for bargaining rights. For too long, Chicago’s school leaders were without a true seat at the negotiating table, forced to navigate a system that prioritizes top-down decisions over collaborative solutions. Chicago principals and assistant principals were locked out of the conversations that determined the fate of our schools, our staff, and our students. Our school leaders are forced to operate in crisis mode: chronic underfunding, inconsistent resources, and a revolving door of top leadership that leaves us without the stability that a union contract can secure. School leaders are constantly being asked to work harder with less—less resources, less time, and less power. Yet, somehow, they do it. Principals and assistant principals do the impossible every day, welcoming students from all walks of life, with differing abilities and unstable home lives. Some don’t have a home at all. They fight for resources, show up under extreme circumstances, and often prioritize the needs of their staff—and certainly the needs of their students—over their own. Principals have been removed without cause or due process. Assistant principals frequently earn less than the teachers they supervise, which makes it extremely difficult to recruit many of our best teachers into principal and assistant principal positions.
While some principals have fewer structural obstacles in their way, most principals navigate constant procedural changes, report to multiple superiors, face isolation, fear of retaliation, and manage impossible staff schedules—all while maintaining a positive outlook for the sake of their students. However, this relentless struggle to keep afloat is neither healthy nor sustainable—and it’s certainly not an ideal environment for the people who are responsible for the education and safety of our children.
We are a union state, a union city, and CPAA recently became the recognized union for principals and assistant principals. It’s time for our state legislature to give them the right it gives to every union that cannot strike: The right to a binding decision from a neutral arbitrator.
Some unions put children first by striking for the conditions students need. Principals put our children first when they refused to strike in order to bring some sense of stability to schools and families. Now it is time to reward their sacrifice with fair and balanced arbitration. That’s where House Bill 297 (HB 297) comes in. It gives binding arbitration rights to principals who cannot strike, similar to the rights we give to police and firefighters who cannot strike. It ensures that if negotiations reach a deadlock, the final decision won’t be made by principals alone or CPS management alone. Instead, a neutral third party—a fair-minded arbitrator—will step in to ensure the outcome is unbiased; considering the best interests of all parties.
We can - and must - do better by our school leaders. HB 297 is a critical part of the solution, putting power back into the hands of those who know our schools best: the leaders on the front lines.
September 26, 2024
Senator Willie Preston (16th District)
Troy LaRaviere (President, Chicago Principals and Administrators Association)
