EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) – Self-described computer geek Edgar Williams has a clear vision of his future: study electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or perhaps Caltech.
But at a time when the soft-spoken sophomore should be engrossed in his studies at East St. Louis High School, he has to be content with the tutoring and other help he can get for three hours a day at an Upward Bound center thanks to an ongoing teachers strike in his southern Illinois community.
“I feel mad,” Williams said Tuesday. “This is just going to slow me down.”
The strike began Oct. 1 after union members rejected a tentative deal between their representatives and the school district in East St. Louis, a poor black community of about 27,000 residents in southwestern Illinois that is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.
The district, which has been under state control since 2011 because of its poor performance, says it needs to save $10 million over the next 10 years. Under the rejected deal, teachers would have received a one-time payment of $2,000 and modest raises but the amount of time it would take to reach top salary scale would have nearly doubled, to 21 years.