Negotiators have options to close gap on salaries
July 29, 2011 at 11:52 pm in The Jamestown Sun
As the new school year looms, two sides continue to hash out an agreement on teachers’ contracts for Jamestown Public Schools, and at this point negotiations could turn down a few different paths.
The Jamestown School Board and the Jamestown Education Association have been at this biannual process since the end of April. They have agreed on everything except salaries.
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The first option is to add more dollars to its salary offer. At the last meeting, the School Board proposed a base salary of $30,000 for the 2011-2012 school year and $31,500 for the 2012-2013 school year.
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Starting at $30000 for a 9 month job seems pretty fair to me. That’s $40K/yr if they worked year round.
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keep in mind, that is base salary. nobody makes the base salary. the lowest salary for 1st year teachers is 1.1 times the base salary. and this new base salary is a 5% raise. that’s more than generous, when people that don’t get paid with taxpayer dollars have been lucky to get even a 2% raise in recent years (if they still have a job).
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You both make a slightly compelling case for a job that doesn’t require a degree or license. In this case, a degree and license is required, as well as additional education. Even 1.1 on a base salary of that amount is not an adequate salary for a professional with a degree. I am not going to be one to say that teachers deserve money for doing nothing (nor would they, I believe), but this is the only way they get raises. They don’t have the option of going to the boss to ask for more, even if they are doing a phenomenal job.
We also only get poor teachers if we pay poorly. I would like to see better pay to attract better teachers, like many of the small towns around Jamestown do.
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that money has to come from somewhere. right now it’s coming from those of us who haven’t been getting decent raises for several years. prepare for a property tax increase.
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As I was thinking about the comments above, I was looking at the math. It is correct that it would be approximately $40,000 per year “if they worked year round”. However, where would one work year round to make that money with their relevant skill-set as a teacher? I think it’s unfair to say that.
tony, I do understand that the bulk of jobs haven’t been getting raises, however this boggles me as North Dakota is a very well off state. If we are well off, we need to put that money into places where it can do good. Education is a good place for that money, in my opinion.
I’m sure nobody here would want to hire a surgeon solely on the basis that he/she is cheap and “just gets the job done”, they would like to pay more for quality. Apply that to our youth.
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As I was thinking about the comments above, I was looking at the math. It is correct that it would be approximately $40,000 per year “if they worked year round”. However, where would one work year round to make that money with their relevant skill-set as a teacher? I think it’s unfair to say that.
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They all know that prior to becoming a teacher. It’s their choice. They know the salary and if they aren’t happy with it, they should’ve chosen a different profession.
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I understand your position, however I cannot say they are not happy with the salary or that they didn’t know what it would be. That isn’t to say that they aren’t unfounded in their requests. I think you have a point, it’s just not relevant here.
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So what is being said is that for a teacher to make just north of 30,000 is too much? I feel teachers should be paid more than that and the qualifications should be higher as well. We need to get our young people better educations, and to ask teachers to do this for the pay they receive is asking alot. I for one can’t imagine what it must be like to be a teacher, I think it would be a difficult but rewarding career. If getting teachers more pay and acquiring a better education for our young people casues us to pay higher taxes so be it.
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