Burgess released a statement calling the teachers the "backbone of the Leon County School District,” and calling for the district to “make teachers a priority.”
The district’s teachers union is in the process of negotiating new salaries and during a recent school board meeting, many teachers took district officials to task for what they see as low pay for a high workload.
In recent years, the state has raised the average starting pay for teachers, but it has left those with more than a decade of experience making just $3,000 more than a teacher with no experience.
Superintendent Rocky Hanna defends what the district has done to increase teacher pay.
“I'm proud to say over the last seven years, we’ve pushed an additional $4-million down into our schools for our principles and our teachers to enhance the quality of education we’re providing,” says Hanna.
He says at the end of the deal, there will be an overall increase of $11,000 over the last seven years for beginner teacher salaries. But that’s led to the problem of compression—where there’s little daylight between beginning salaries and those for more senior professionals.
The Leon County Classroom Teachers Association is pushing for $6.8 million for salary raises that would skew more toward those veteran teachers. Scott Mazur is the local union president.
“Our expectations for tomorrow is that the Leon County school board and the superintendent, and the district as a whole make a choice to show that they are prioritizing a great teacher in every child’s classroom,” says Mazur.
Mazur says the lack of breathing room on salaries is leading some teachers to leave the profession of teaching because they cannot afford to keep working for low pay.
