Cahokia Community Unit School District 187: A Comprehensive Overview
Cahokia Community Unit School District 187 is a school district located in Illinois, specifically within St. Clair County. The district is based in Cahokia Heights, Illinois, in Greater St. Louis. Its service area encompasses Cahokia Heights, Sauget, and small portions of East St. Louis. This article aims to provide a thorough examination of the district, covering its history, schools, performance, and recent labor disputes.
Historical Context
The history of Cahokia Community Unit School District 187 is rich and spans several decades. On April 1, 1950, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Cahokia Commonfields High and Junior High School building. A significant change occurred in July 1956 when the non-high school district 202, which included elementary school districts 182 and 184, was dissolved. The area previously served by district 202 was divided between Cahokia and East St. Louis School District 189. As a result, Cahokia district began to serve students of all grade levels from the former 202 district. The Cahokia district received approximately 33% of the students and around 33% of District 182's assessed valuation, while the East St. Louis district took the remainder.
The district experienced significant growth in the following years. In the 1958-1959 school year, the district had over 4,000 students. The peak enrollment occurred at the beginning of the 1970-1971 school year, with 8,422 students. The Wirth Junior High School campus on Mousette Lane opened in 1963. Prior to that, the school was located in the Cahokia High School building. In the late 1990s, it was renamed "Wirth Middle School".
Schools Within the District
Cahokia Community Unit School District 187 operates nine schools. These schools are listed below in alphabetical order:
Cahokia School of Choice: This is a K-8 magnet school. It is located in the former St. Catherine’s Laboure parochial school of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville.
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Estelle Sauget Academic Center: This center was designed for students who are at least two grade levels behind on standardized tests or those who have been retained at least once.
Estelle Sauget Freshman Academy: This school was attached to the district headquarters.
Jerome Elementary School: Jerome Elementary School opened in 1895. In the 1980s, the district kept the school's special education section open, but due to a decline in enrollment, it closed the regular program. While Jerome was closed in the 1980s, the St. Catherine Laboure School leased the gymnasium, and Southern Illinois University (SIU) leased other areas for its Head Start program. The school reopened in August 1990 after an enrollment increase during the late 1980s.
There were also schools that were closed due to different reasons:
A school opened in 1955. It closed in 1975 before the start of the new school year. The district leased the building to the Cahokia village government and the district began offering the school for sale in 1977. The district sold the school to the village government for $1 in 1980.
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A school opened in 1957. As a result of an enrollment decline, the school closed in 1983.
A school opened in 1941. It was closed in 1953. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the district attempted to sell the school. The school reopened in 1990 with the ELF preschool program. The program was moved to Jerome when the district closed the Pitzman campus in 2001, after the school year ended.
Student Proficiency and Teacher Statistics
Each year, state and local education agencies use tests and other standards to assess student proficiency. According to the Department of Education, proficiency measurements are established by the states. As a result, proficiency levels are not comparable between different states, and year-over-year proficiency levels within a district may not be comparable because states may change their proficiency measurements. To protect student privacy, percentages are reported as ranges for groups of 300 students or fewer. As of the 2023-2024 school year, Cahokia Community Unit School District 187 had 164.60 full-time classroom teachers.
Labor Disputes and Unfair Labor Practices
Recently, Cahokia Unit School District 187 has been embroiled in tumultuous union contract negotiations, leading to findings of unfair labor practices by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. The Cahokia Federation of Teachers Local 1272 filed a complaint alleging violations of state labor law.
The Illinois Public Labor Relations Act protects educational employees’ rights to form and participate in labor organizations and to collectively bargain through representatives. Administrative Law Judge John F. Brosnan ruled that district leadership infringed on these employee rights at the August 2024 Welcome Wagon event, where employees visit students at the end of summer break and distribute school supplies.
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Brosnan stated that Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr. and Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Tanya Mitchell conveyed to employees that the Union was ineffectual and that it was futile to trust it could make gains on their behalf. He concluded that these actions coerced, restrained, or interfered with employees’ exercise of protected rights.
The allegations in Brosnan’s decision include:
McCall "degraded and belittled" Union efforts to advocate for those it represents in a speech he gave to employees at the 2024 Welcome Wagon. McCall said in his speech that the union’s messaging was convoluted and that staff should get information directly from him instead of the union. In his speech, McCall criticized union safety concerns brought up in an earlier bargaining session and the union’s attempt to make the 2024 Welcome Wagon voluntary for staff in that session.
McCall and Mitchell humiliated Cahokia Federation of Teachers Local 1252 President Wendy Lochmann and Vice President Erin Reeb by making them ride in the back of police cars instead of on buses with the other employees during the Welcome Wagon.
McCall and Mitchell broke an agreement with the union to accommodate employees with physical limitations by making those employees stack chairs while their colleagues greeted students.
McCall disputes the allegations, stating that neither he nor the school district broke the law and that they did nothing out of the ordinary. The district initially denied breaking the law but later accepted a default judgment instead of participating in a scheduled hearing in Chicago, citing ongoing contract negotiations and other commitments.
Brosnan ordered the district to cease infringing on employees’ rights, post signed copies of a notice relating to the ruling for 60 days, and notify the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board within 20 days of steps taken to comply with the order.
Union President Wendy Lochmann, who is also a Cahokia High English teacher, emphasized the importance of the ruling in validating the rights of union members to participate in the union without intimidation.
McCall maintains that the accusations are untrue. He claims that his remarks at the 2024 Welcome Wagon did not disparage the union and that he encouraged staff to address safety concerns with him directly. He also stated that the Cahokia Heights Police Chief requested that Reeb and Lochmann ride with him to address safety concerns. Additionally, McCall asserted that accommodations were made for individuals with physical limitations.
The union filed the complaint because it was upset that he made the 2024 Welcome Wagon mandatory for staff. It was previously voluntary. This school year’s Welcome Wagon was also mandatory and went smoothly, McCall said.
Contract Negotiations
The decision comes as the union and district wade through contentious contract negotiations. Teachers have been working more than 40 days without a current contract. A contract with secretaries and service workers expired more than 100 days ago.
McCall said much of the delay comes from a large volume of changes the district proposed - ones he said are in the best interest of students. But Lochmann said the district’s proposals ultimately strip worker protections and other provisions that help employees, and benefit administration rather than students.
Ray Roskos, the Illinois Federation of Teachers field service director who assists Local 1272, said the district’s conduct throughout negotiations and the events that transpired at the 2024 Welcome Wagon are part of a pattern of McCall disrespecting the union.
“(The Welcome Wagon) kind of set the tone going into negotiations for how he treated my union leaders,” Roskos said. “I would say there is no relationship with the district (now) - and that itself is a problem.”
McCall said the notion that the district was disrespectful of the union by mandating staff attend the Welcome Wagon event is “ludicrous,” and that the contract negotiations have nothing to do with the 2024 event.
“The district isn’t disrespecting the union by having them go into the neighborhoods of the students that they serve,” McCall said. “If staff members are good enough to come here to receive a paycheck, they should be good enough to once a year go into the community to provide school supplies and welcome the students back to school.”
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