Teachers in Alachua County are fed up.
The recent salary "increase" proposal by the Alachua County School Board was soundly rejected Jan. 21 by teachers — and for good reason. The proposed 1.6% increase did nothing to satisfy the complaints from local teachers who say it wasn’t enough to keep up with the national rate of inflation, which as of last month, is right at 2.9%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
You don't have to be an economist to realize that life is more expensive nowadays, from eggs to rent and everything in between.
It is disappointing to see how teacher salaries in Gainesville compare to other local occupations to say the least.
The starting salary for a teacher in Alachua County is $47,317 — $8,683 less than the average pay for a manager at Tropical Smoothie and $3,000 less than the average pay of a local Dunkin’ manager.
Historically, Florida has done an atrocious job of spending on education, and teachers in Gainesville are subjected to some of the lowest teacher salaries in America.
For Florida as a whole, the good news is that we no longer rank last in the nation when it comes to teacher pay.
Florida now ranks second to last.
According to a recent survey by the National Education Association, only West Virginia does worse paying teachers what they deserve. We are second on this dubious list, followed by South Dakota, Mississippi and Missouri.
The money that we aren't spending could help pay for everything from school supplies and infrastructure to after school programs and teacher salaries.
Of course, that's not to say there's no money in education, or no money in the bank accounts of Alachua County Public Schools. It's just not being spent on teachers or students.
A few folks in town are doing really well, and some teachers in Alachua County might even be tempted to ask the new Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Kamela Patton for a loan.
Interestingly enough, the same school board that said Jan. 21 they could only afford to give teachers a 1% raise approved a lucrative contract for Patton in November, filled with perks that would make an A-list celebrity jealous.
While teachers make $47,317 a year, Patton makes $19,500… every month. That's enough to buy a ton of smoothies from Tropical Smoothie Cafe and still have plenty left over for coffee from Dunkin'.
So, Patton makes in just over two months what these classroom teachers make in a whole year.
That doesn't make much sense to most people.
I mentioned inflation earlier, and we all know how the cost of living has skyrocketed in Gainesville and everywhere else. Sadly, there are teachers in Gainesville who can't afford rent and are living with friends, family members or in their cars.
Thankfully, Patton doesn't have to worry about this because in addition to her salary, the board also included an additional $2,000 per month for her mortgage or rent. This way, she doesn't have to spend any of the $19,500 that she makes each month on living expenses.
To make the deal even sweeter, the board threw in an additional $175 monthly allowance for her cell phone, so she doesn't have to spend any of her $234,000 yearly salary on T-Mobile or Verizon.
$175 seems like a lot for one person's cell phone bill, but hey, since the taxpayers in Gainesville are footing the bill, why not get the family plan?
It's about time we started standing up for our teachers, not just with words, but with actions. When our teachers suffer, our students suffer, and that is something we cannot afford, as the consequences could be dire.
Andrew Carswell is a writing professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
