Teachers make final plea for contract

On the eve of the third – and likely last – mediation session over a contract impasse, several Coeur d’Alene teachers made a final appeal to the school board at its Monday meeting.

When their names were called during the public comment session, the teachers handed board members stacks of letters from co-workers who could not make the meeting because of parent conferences.

Ben Curtiss, who teaches at the juvenile detention center, said he can’t decide whether it’s better for him to receive a salary raise or pay cut. Even a 4 percent raise may not cover rises in health care and other increasing expenses, he said. At least with a pay cut, Curtiss said, he would go below the poverty line and be able to get more food on the table to feed his children.

Curtiss said he lives in Wallace because he can’t afford housing in Coeur d’Alene.

Tim Sandford, a music teacher at Lake City High School, apologized that he hadn’t prepared comments. Sandford said he didn’t know until late that day that he would be addressing the board in the place of another teacher, and spent the afternoon cutting firewood to offset the increase in his gas bill.

Eric Louis, an English teacher at Coeur d’Alene High School, said the teachers union has been patient for the past few years in not pushing for higher raises.

As a union representative, he said he has had to sell the past three contracts to Coeur d’Alene Education Association members and came under fire for not fulfilling their requests.

This year, Louis said, “We need a proposal that can sell.

“Now is not the time for stonewalling, it is the time for heroics,” he added. “I believe the ball is in your court and I’m reduced to pleading.”