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D-156 schools closed for 3rd day Negotiations continued late Sunday after union supporters held ‘Back to School’ rally By CAITLIN SWIECA cswieca@shawmedia.com McHENRY – McHenry Community High School District 156 schools will be closed for a third straight school day Monday after a Sunday negotiation session between the teachers union and school board stretched late into Sunday night. As of press time, there was no deal in place to end the teachers strike that began Thursday. Sunday’s negotiation session
started at 1 p.m. “Our guys just want The teachers union announced on Twitter at 7:41 p.m. to make a deal. We want that there would be no school Monday regardless of wheth- to get everything settled. er a tentative agreement was reached. Heidie Dunn Union spokeswoman Heidie D-156 teachers union Dunn said the sides were hopespokeswoman ful a deal would be reached, and she confirmed schools were canceled because the board wanted time to present the The negotiation session union with any potential agree- was the second since the strike ment, which would then need to began Thursday. The sides be voted on. were not able to reach a deal
Friday afternoon in a session that lasted about 2½ hours, although three proposals were exchanged between the sides. Before negotiations began Sunday, dozens of orange-clad union supporters attended a “Back to School” rally outside the district board office, chanting and cheering each time a passing car honked in support. At the rally, Dunn said the teachers were thankful for the community’s support and negotiators were determined to reach a deal before leaving the
table. “Our guys just want to make a deal,” Dunn said. “We want to get everything settled. We understand that negotiations are a give-and-take process, so we want to go in there in good faith that we’re going to be giving and taking as well as the school board is.” In addition to canceled classes, the district’s estimated 2,600 students have not had any extracurricular or co-curricular activities, and all practices preseason workouts and condition-
ing, and off-site workouts have been suspended because of logistical and liability issues, according to the district website. All Illinois High School Association interscholastic athletics and activities also are canceled or postponed for District 156 students during the strike period, the website said. The two sides have been at odds largely because of compensation and insurance contributions. This is the first teachers strike in District 156 since 1985.
Board to take final vote on townships
MCHENRY COUNTY CORRECTIONS BUREAU CREW FOCUSES ON COMMUNITY NEEDS
Resolutions would appear on ballots in March election By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com
Matthew Apgar – mapgar@shawmedia.com
McHenry County Sheriff’s Office Correctional Officer Ted Bihlmaier (right) waits with inmates as they take a break Sept. 10 from shoveling broken asphalt from State Line Road in Hebron. The volunteer, nonviolent inmates are compensated with $3 a day, which can go toward commissaries and phone calls and allows for a break from mundane jail time while helping better the community by completing necessary tasks.
Inmates participate in service work Workers in corrections bureau crew set to log more hours than 2014 By CAITLIN SWIECA cswieca@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – After the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Bureau Road Crew nearly doubled its service hours from 2013 to 2014, the unit is set to meet or surpass last year’s total in 2015, Correctional Officer Ted Bihlmaier said. Bihlmaier, who coordinates the program for inmates with nonviolent histories, said the group was able to increase its productivity this year by extending its season. The program began in early April rather than early May, and work will continue until Oct. 16, later than its normal end date.
final tally will represent another increase. A total of 15 inmates worked for the crew throughout the summer, with crews of three or four workers regularly being dispatched throughout the county. The unit provided a variety of services this summer, Bihlmaier said, with the only restriction being the inmates could not operate machinery. The crew focused on trash and refuse collection in the spring and later performed patchwork, road resurfacing, wood chipping, garbage pickup, guardrail painting, paint recycling and other services. He estimated the crew has performed work this summer in at least Bihlmaier talks with an inmate as they await the return of a dump truck that col- 15 of McHenry County’s 17 townships and helped in several cities. lected broken and removed asphalt from State Line Road in Hebron. The work can be particularly “The townships really needed Workers completed 5,484 hours in valuable for smaller townships. us,” Bihlmaier said, “so we just kept 2014, up from 2,876 the year before, scheduling.” and Bihlmaier believes this year’s See INMATES, page A3
On the Web: To see more photos of inmates doing road work, visit NWHerald.com.
WOODSTOCK – The McHenry County Board will decide Tuesday which townships, if any at all, should be put before voters next year to consolidate. Board members will vote on eight separate resolutions that, if approved and subsequent- If you go ly ratified by voters, would WHAT: halve the num- McHenry ber of county County Board townships from meeting 17 to eight, as an WHEN: 9 advocacy group a.m. Tuesday wants. WHERE: But the McHenry tough quesCounty Adtions that board members asked ministration last month of Building, 667 the task force Ware Road, convened to de- Woodstock velop the plan, combined with the fact that the task force could agree only on recommending two consolidations, make the odds long that Joe board members Gottemoller would approve putting all eight proposed consolidations to voters. Odds are likely that township officials and employees, who dominated the public-comment portion of the McHenry County Township Consolidation Task Force’s hearings, will do so once more before the County Board deliberates. McHenry County Board Chairman Joe Gottemoller, R-Crystal Lake, convened the five-member task force in spring at the request of a group called McHenry County Citizens for Township Consolidation. The group, led by a Nunda Township trustee and with the blessing of a number of higher-ups in the McHenry
See TOWNSHIPS, page A8
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