Readers Sound Off on Teacher Pickets

As Deerfield School District 109 and the Deerfield Education Association and the school board got another mediation session under their belts Monday, Patch’s readers have been sounding off. 

With comments supporting the teachers and others in favor of the administration, it is time for Patch to take a poll to let even more readers express their ideas before the next mediation session Dec. 14. 

One reader, "Deerfield Resident," wrote his support for teachers is evaporating. “I've been working my entire adult life and I've never had a contract,” the reader wrote. “I've supported the teachers in the past, but guess what? Times have changed. Be grateful you have jobs.”

Another reader, Tiffany Spatafore, comments the issues have little to do with economics or health care. She sees a commitment to students from instructors and little from the District 109 School Board.

“At the end of the day, these teachers are fighting for the kids while the school board is focused on taking away rights from teachers,” Spatafore writes. “Deerfield should be standing up and supporting these courageous teachers!”

Still others, like Lee, see no reason teachers should be exempt from the same health care issues other people deal with each day.

“Doubling or tripling a co-pay is nothing,” Lee writes. “You barely pay anything in premiums to begin with. Try doubling those while having prescription coverage taken away. My premiums are over three times as much as they were two years ago.”