ASPIRA charter union reaches tentative agreement to avoid strike

The union representing more than 100 teachers, counselors and support staff in the four-school ASPIRA network has reached a tentative agreement with school management to avoid a strike, 10 days before the union vowed to walk off.

The agreement will be put to a vote by the union’s rank-and-file members at some point in the next 10 days, according to union spokeswoman Chris Geovanis.

As part of the tentative agreement, members of ChiACTS Local 4343 would receive a 3.25 percent pay raise in the first year, retroactive to Feb. 1, 2017, and a 3 percent pay raise next year, Geovanis said.

She said it was “a very positive agreement to come to with many challenges in the bargaining process.”

The work year would also be shortened by four days, and work days would shrink from 8 hours per day to 7 hours and 35 minutes, with neither change impacting students’ time in the classroom, according to Geovanis.

Last month, the union voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike, and a walkout date was set for March 17 if an agreement was not reached.

The strike vote was prompted by what the union called a “lack of transparency and accountability in finances and foundering leadership at the network’s most senior levels, threatening conditions in classrooms.”

The ASPIRA network operates a middle school and three high schools on the Northwest Side.