Evanston/Skokie School District 65 may have violated state law by failing to publicize a March 29 meeting at which board members voted to inform 70 teachers their jobs may be terminated, the president of the district’s teachers union said Monday.

Robert Carroll, president of the District Educators Council, filed a grievance last Friday claiming District 65 violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act, requiring school board meetings to be held publicly. He said he already has e-mailed lawyers a list of violations and plans to file a lawsuit, which could result in a fine for the district.

“We have to go through the grievance process to ensure that we have a voice,” he said.

D65 held the meeting March 29 to discuss eliminating the teaching positions in an effort to reduce the $1.6 million budget deficit facing the district this year. The district then sent letters to 70 tenured and non-tenured teachers letting them know their positions may be cut next year.

School Board President Mary Rita Luecke said the district’s failure to publicize the meeting was an oversight. But Carroll said he believes it was intentionally closed.

“You don’t have an accident with that kind of a thing,” Carroll said. “It’s just secondhand to inform the people about the meeting. That’s why they have a secretary that’s paid to publicize notices.”

In a two-hour negotiation with the union after Monday’s private meeting, district officials did not inform union representatives about the decision to authorize the mailing of the letters, Carroll said. District officials’ failure to communicate with the teachers union is not new, he said, and it demonstrates that the district wanted to discuss cutting teachers behind closed doors.

“This is an overriding issue,” said Julie Drew, a fourth grade teacher at Washington Elementary School and former public relations chairwoman for the union. “Day to day a lot of things happen without us knowing about what’s going on. To us it’s a pattern.”