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Our Side of the Story
Vern Dahl |
State’s offer to teachers
is a step in wrong directionRecently I was asked to explain why the teachers seem frustrated about their salaries again, and didn't they just go on strike not long ago and get pay raises? There are many reasons, but I'll try to be brief and to the point.
>>Virtually all U.S. school districts have salary schedules with cost-of-living increases, yearly step raises. The number of steps generally ranges from 8 to 15, and teachers move one step per year until the top of the step ladder. Each step usually amounts to about a 3 percent increase. This enables a teacher to see where he or she will be in so many years even without a general raise.
>> Hawaii had 15 steps in its schedule, but in the late 1970s the Legislature took away the yearly movement on the steps. However, the steps are still there on paper. Occasionally teachers get so upset about no yearly cost-of-living raises that they threaten to strike, so they may be granted a general step movement maybe every three to five years. A teacher may come in at a certain step and sit there for many years, saying "nobody told me you couldn't move on the schedule."
Naturally, the recruiters aren't going to tell you that. Why would one come to a high-cost-of-living state and not get a cost of living raise?
>> The 2001 strike settlement included three things that, on the surface, seemed helpful. In general, the whole schedule moved up a cost of living amount, they cut off the first two steps to attract new teachers at a higher level, and they guaranteed a one-step movement for all for two years, and two more if funding was available.
Guess what? The funding was declared not to be available, so no raises to anyone this school year, and likely not next year also, according to the governor.
>> The offer from the state is 0 percent next year, and 1 percent the following year. The net effect would be no raise for two years, and then a whopping 1 percent the third. In addition, this year the Legislature helped move the Hawaii State Teachers Association from its own medical cost plan to join the other state unions plan, because teachers are, in general, more healthy than the other groups. This raised a family's medical costs $800 per year. Next school year it will increase about 10 percent for HMSA and 37 percent for Kaiser. With rents, property taxes, food, gas and everything else accordingly raised, why in the world wouldn't the teachers be frustrated?
>> HSTA now has 13 steps on the salary schedule after cutting off steps one and two. Some 56 percent of the teachers are in the bottom three steps, and not going anywhere. House Bill 1924 is moving through the Legislature and this would reinstitute the yearly cost-of-living step movement, but an amendment was tacked on to have it implemented on July 1, 2010. This would give us seven more years of virtually nothing.
>> I know someone else's pay doesn't seem to be your problem, but for a state that claims that education of the children is the highest priority, treating the people that teach your kids in this manner is hard to believe.
>> The next week or two will be critical, as a federal mediator will try to come up with some sort of common ground. Hopefully, everyone will try to do the right thing and not get into the "not enough money to fund," political business again.
Vern Dahl is a teacher at Kamalii Elementary School in Kihei, Maui.