“I feel that the teachers are not currently a priority for our school district.” It sounds like an oxymoron. A school literally could not exist without the presence of teachers. In fact, having teachers that are well prepared for the job and enthusiastic about their work can easily create a healthy and encouraging learning environment. It’s just common sense: teachers that are supported are better suited to support their students.
This statement truly is absurd. Unfortunately, in the case of many Terra Linda teachers, it’s true. The particular quote above describes the feelings of Terra Linda teacher Mark Lubamersky, yet Lubamersky isn’t the only teacher who feels this way. Several teachers have gotten together to inform parents and bring attention to the injustice they feel they’re facing from the San Rafael School District.
Teacher Steve Coleman summed up the issue this way: “Our contract states the district, which has much [more] money [than they used to], will provide a salary that is ‘at or above the average’ of our comparable districts. We are now 5%-9% below our comparable districts, depending on which part of the salary scale you look at. Most teachers have been very unhappy with this.”
And the teachers who detest this situation have been voicing their thoughts. A lot of teachers have been doing “informational picketing,” which is, as Coleman put it, “part of a larger effort to get the district to offer teachers a fair increase in their salary.”
Teachers have been handing out flyers before school informing SRCS parents about this pay gap to bring attention to it. The end hope is to make Terra Linda’s current teachers feel valued and respected by their district. By increasing the pay of Terra Linda teachers, the district will also increase the chances of bringing some other great teachers into the school, as well as decrease the chances of TL teachers leaving to work for other schools that offer better pay.
Some important information being spread to parents by the teachers are represented by these graphs:
This graph demonstrates how Terra Linda teachers have been getting incrementally smaller raises throughout the years, yet the district budget has grown a lot during that time.
When compared to different districts in Marin, Terra Linda’s latest raise proves to be the smallest out of all of them.
This year’s budgets for various different expenses are projected to be increased, yet teachers’ salaries are not.
Reserve funds, which are set aside to be used in case of unanticipated problems, are projected to go up again, where teachers’ salaries are not. Unappropriated funds, which are not used for any particular purpose, are expected to go down exponentially, but the causes these funds are going towards do not include bringing teachers’ salaries up to what their contracts promise. (All information cited was provided by Mark Lubamersky and has been generated from the San Rafael City Schools website and salary schedule.)