A Small Step For Educators

It’s not what teachers in the Palm Beach School District were hoping for, but a moderate pay raise will pacify 12,500 educators, as well as other district employees and administrators in the new year.

The agreement, unanimously approved by the district Board of Education this week, gives teachers evaluated as “effective” last year 2.75 percent raises, while those rated “highly effective” are in line for a 3.5 percent increase in pay. The tentative raises are retroactive to July 1, and will be the largest that the county’s teachers have seen in four years if ratified by the Classroom Teachers Association membership.

District administrators, including Superintendent Dr. Robert Avossa, will see 3 percent raises.

In all, the raises will tally around $30 million.

While CTA President Justin Katz implied he is generally pleased with the final negotiation numbers - and there are some notable improvements over recent contracts - I'm not sure we’d call it a “victory.” Since the loss of automatic annual “step” salary increases several years ago, plus increases associated with insurance, teacher raises have not kept up with the cost of living; many teachers have lost thousands of dollars annually between what they were projected to make and where they stand today.

Factor in higher annual salaries and benefit packages in other states (especially along the east coast and in New England), and there are reasons the Palm Beach School District, like virtually every other district in Florida, is struggling to both bring in newer qualified educators and retain the educators recently hired.

On Facebook, Katz noted there “are efforts in the works to address salary compression” which will be dealt with during next year's negotiations. So possibly there’s hope on the horizon that teachers’ salaries may bounce back to where many believe they should be on the overall salary scale. 

The district is also pondering asking residents to support a small property tax increase, with the funds dedicated to teacher salaries in hopes of keeping them in district classrooms. Under the proposal being pushed by Avossa, voters would pay about $25 more per $100,000 of assessed property on their tax bills. If put on the ballot and approved, this would provide about $50 million a year toward teacher salaries.

While it’s easy to point at the district - and they are not entirely blameless here - at least they’re trying to be proactive. I'm not sure the same can be said in either the state or federal capitol. Many of the problems with funding public education in Florida today - that’s public education as a whole, not just salaries - stems from issues in both Washington, D.C. and Tallahassee. The continued push to use public education funding for charter schools, plus the continued chipping away of money dedicated to districts the past decade, has led to less financial flexibility for the district. 

Back in April, Avossa encouraged continued communication with state lawmakers, urging them to open the fiscal pursestrings and make education funding a priority. I urge continued open communications with both lawmakers and the work force you represent, and look forward to when teachers are truly compensated to where they want to stay in the profession.