Teachers remain off job; no new talks scheduled

CAIRO, Ill. -- Teachers in this Southern Illinois city remained off the job Monday in a strike over salary and benefits, and no new contract talks are scheduled.

Three rounds of contentious meetings over the weekend failed to produce an agreement, teachers' union president Ron Newell said Monday. The district's 71 teachers, who walked off the job Thursday, have been working without a contract since August.

District officials met with parents on Sunday, when they announced plans for administrators to teach high school seniors and eighth-graders for the remainder of the school year, Newell said.

District Superintendent Robert Isom did not immediately return a telephone call from The Associated Press. No classes were held Monday.

Newell said district officials planned to teach only eighth-graders and seniors to prepare for a state test for those two grade levels and to allow seniors to graduate on time.

School officials have offered a flat $112,000 in new money that teachers could apply toward salary and their health insurance, and Newell said officials upped that offer to around $145,000 over the weekend.

But while officials in the district of 950 students say that sum would provide each teacher more than $1,000 each in increased salary and benefits, teachers say their new insurance bill would take up most of the money and they would end up with a salary freeze.

The district is in one of the state's poorest cities, and Isom has said that there's no money to meet teachers' salary demands. He said officials had to sell tax-anticipation bonds to meet the last payroll.