"We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. " -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Monday, August 18, 2008
Will there be a teachers strike this year?
We have not seen any news on an agreement between the SVSD and the teachers union.
Will we see a strike in the fall?
If you have any news, information or comments please share them here.
-MSP
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
http://snoqualmie-sea.bravehost.com/
This is the union website. There is no priveleged or private information on it that I know of.
the SVSD administrators have a clause in their contract that says their salaries shall be set so that they are "average" among a list of neighboring districts.
the teachers are asking for a clause with similar language in the contract under negotiation. the SVSD teachers are currently LAST among the neighboring districts.
This difference does not seem equitable, especially since administrators are so much more highly paid than teachers to begin with! Our district needs to pay administrators competitively. Same goes for teachers.
The district says the teachers are getting a 5.2% raise mandated by the state and that they (the district) doesn't have the money to cover the "unfunded mandate" part. This is something that has been on the radar for a long time. It has to do with money that Dino Rossi maneuvered to have withheld from teachers.. it is money connected with initiatives. It is no surprise and should have been planned for. And it is not unique to our district. It is a state-wide catch up.
If a teacher has worked for more than 15 years in SVSD, the only salary increases come from COLA (cost of living adjustments), since the salary schedule stops at 15 years, except for a $1000 "longevity bonus" paid every 5 years - or in other words, $200 per year salary increase. Neighboring districts offer much better deals to experienced teachers, many of whom are putting their kids through school, taking care of elder parents and all kinds of things.
All in all, SVSD does not offer teachers the same type of pay deal it offers its own administrators, and does not offer compensation commensurate with neighboring districts.
No wonder administrators are always thanking the teachers for the great jobs being done for our kids.
Teachers deserve more than words. They deserve at least as good a deal as the administrators.
2 comments:
http://snoqualmie-sea.bravehost.com/
This is the union website. There is no priveleged or private information on it that I know of.
Consider this:
the SVSD administrators have a clause in their contract that says their salaries shall be set so that they are "average" among a list of neighboring districts.
the teachers are asking for a clause with similar language in the contract under negotiation. the SVSD teachers are currently LAST among the neighboring districts.
This difference does not seem equitable, especially since administrators are so much more highly paid than teachers to begin with! Our district needs to pay administrators competitively. Same goes for teachers.
The district says the teachers are getting a 5.2% raise mandated by the state and that they (the district) doesn't have the money to cover the "unfunded mandate" part. This is something that has been on the radar for a long time. It has to do with money that Dino Rossi maneuvered to have withheld from teachers.. it is money connected with initiatives. It is no surprise and should have been planned for. And it is not unique to our district. It is a state-wide catch up.
If a teacher has worked for more than 15 years in SVSD, the only salary increases come from COLA (cost of living adjustments), since the salary schedule stops at 15 years, except for a $1000 "longevity bonus" paid every 5 years - or in other words, $200 per year salary increase. Neighboring districts offer much better deals to experienced teachers, many of whom are putting their kids through school, taking care of elder parents and all kinds of things.
All in all, SVSD does not offer teachers the same type of pay deal it offers its own administrators, and does not offer compensation commensurate with neighboring districts.
No wonder administrators are always thanking the teachers for the great jobs being done for our kids.
Teachers deserve more than words. They deserve at least as good a deal as the administrators.
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