Reg Weaver to Speak at KC Black School Educators Conference

NEA president Reg Weaver will be the featured speaker at the 21st Annual Kansas Alliance of Black School Educators State Conference. The event will be held in Kansas City, Missouri and is hosted by the Greater Kansas City Alliance of Black School Educators. Teachers from both states are invited to register.
Send an email to snea@aol.com, and we'll send you a registration form.

"Guiding Learners on the Road to Educational and Cultural Excellence"

Date: October 13 - 14, 2006
Location: Kauffman Foundation, 4801 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Missouri
Featured Speakers/Workshop Leaders:

Mr. Reginald Weaver, National Education Association President

Dr. M. Christopher Brown, II, Vice President Research and Policy for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

For more information, contact Melba Underwood at 913-593-1040.

Labor Day Parade & Picnic

You've always wanted to be in a parade, right? There's no guarantee you'll sit atop a float wearing a tiara, but if you want to take a Monday afternoon walk with some of your SNEA friends, you should come out and march along with us.

Staging for the parade begins at noon at the corner of Grand and John Q. The actual parade begins at 2:00 pm. All members are invited - hey, it's good exercise, and you get to throw candy at people. Kids welcome!

Route: Grand & JQ to Campbell, Campbell to Fassnight Park

Picnic lunch at Fassnight for $3.50. Live Music - Games for kids - Car Show

Speakers: Sen. John Edwards, Claire McCaskill, Jay Nixon, Susan Montee

Hope you can make it.

SNEA Membership Form

First, I'd like to thank all the building reps who came by and had some breakfast and coffee last Monday. Seventeen showed up, in all, which wasn't bad for a first time (on a Monday at 7:30).

I'll be delivering member materials the rest of this week and during the first week of school. It's a hectic time for everyone right now, and I'd like to thank in advance all the building reps who are helping out with distribution to members in their buildings.

You know, if we were to add one new member per building, SNEA would be closing in on 1,000 members. With a stronger voice representing the teachers and support employees, we can be instrumental in shaping the future of our schools.

Those of us working among the children of this community know the state of public education better than anyone, including those politicians at every level who choose to bandy the subject about for political gain rather than address any serious reform issues. As the education football gets kicked around this election season, teacher will work hard as they always have and rely on their three greatest sources of encouragement and support - the kids, the parents and each other.

I've had the pleasure of seeing so many SNEA members over the past few weeks while traveling around to meetings and schools. On this first contract day, many were leading meetings and training sessions in classrooms across the district - and it has been very encouraging to talk with teachers from all over town. Thank you for all your kind words of support.

Good luck as you enter another challenging year and please encourage your colleagues to sign up with SNEA. Contact your building rep or call 869-5090 if you have questions. SNEA Membership Form

Board Chooses Partial Levy Rollout, Comments

Board Approves Mini-Rollout of Rollback

The Springfield school board, despite pleas from both teacher groups and one concerned parent, chose to adopt a 2006-2007 budget that included a $.0432 rollout of last year's $.14 rollback and a rather timid 2.5% salary increase for teachers. Board members expressed concerns that boosting the levy higher at this late date would require the amending of teacher contracts and budget adjustments that would prove to be problematic for the district.

The rollout will create approximately $1 million in operating revenue, leaving about $2.7 million of voter-approved revenue unused. An additional one percent teacher raise would have required a rollout of approximately $.08 and would have had no effect on the hiring of new teachers.

But that's what would have been . . . on the positive side, it was somewhat encouraging to at least hear a couple of board members publicly express a real interest in teacher salaries and to set their improvement as a priority during the next budget cycle. SNEA will be heavily involved in working to this end.

Strategic Plan SP5 Updated

Community Development and Grants Director, Mark Maness, presented an update on the district's long range strategic plan, titled SP5. SP5 will utilize focus groups, surveys and other marketing tools to gather community input regarding the future of SPS over the next 10 to 15 years. We'll have more on this later as more information is available.

SPS Today has a summary of last night's school board meeting.

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Comments to the board by SNEA President Ray Smith - 8/15/2006

Board Members
Pres. Hoeman
Dr. Ridder

Today I spent the better part of the day meeting some of the 210 new teachers hired into the Springfield school district. It was encouraging to see so many young and energetic faces entering a profession that so many of us have grown to love. I am sure that all of us in this room hope they have a very rewarding first year in the classroom, learning along with their students how to best approach this business of public education.

My experience tells me that most of them will face unforeseen challenges, and some may become discouraged or disillusioned along the way - but the rewards can be unforgettable. It takes a lot of inner strength to teach in today's classrooms, and I know we all wish them well.

Recruiting and retaining the best teaching talent available is one of the goals this district has espoused, but sometimes the district sends a mixed message to teachers and proponents of public education in the community. Last year's tax levy rollback is a perfect example. After some 18 years without a levy increase, the parents, teachers and concerned citizens of Springfield finally approved a $0.25 increase. There was much cause for celebration, especially among the teachers who worked the phone banks and encouraged their friends and neighbors to support our schools.

This is where the confusion begins. The district elected to withhold some $3.6 million of potential revenue that had been approved by the voters in an effort to show careful stewardship - the levy was, in effect, more than the district needed.

Now the district, which is ranked 386th in the state in size of levy (that's just below Couch, Weaubleau, and Purdy, but just above Hurley and Humansville), is ready to roll out another $.04 while offering the teachers a rather modest 2.5% pay increase.

While the rollback and ensuing rollouts of the rollback are confusing, one thing seems perfectly clear. Increasing teacher salaries is not a priority - and now at least one adjacent district has passed Springfield in base salary for teachers. This cannot be seen as a good trend.

I hope the district will work with the teachers in the coming year to help remedy what is a looming problem for the district. Recruiting and retaining quality educators will become more difficult as our teacher salaries slip lower in rank, year after year.

Thank you for your time.

How Does Teacher Pay Compare?

This is from a report on teacher compensation issues presented by the Economic Policy Institute, August 2004, written by Sylvia Allegretto, Sean Corcoran and Lawrence Mishel. EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy.

This particular summary provides some perspective on teacher pay issues.

How Does Teacher Pay Compare?

Methodological Challenges and Answers

The major findings of our review and analysis include the following:

• Recent research shows that teacher quality is key to student and school success.

• A continuing issue is whether teacher pay is sufficient to attract and retain quality teachers: trends in relative teacher pay seem to coincide with trends in teacher quality over the long run.

• Several types of analyses show that teachers earn significantly less than comparable workers, and this wage disadvantage has grown considerably over the last 10 years.

• An analysis of weekly wage trends shows that teachers' wages have fallen behind those of other workers since 1996, with teachers' inflation-adjusted weekly wages rising just 0.8%, far less than the 12% weekly wage growth of other college graduates and of all workers.

• A comparison of teachers' weekly wages to those of other workers with similar education and experience shows that, since 1993, female teacher wages have fallen behind 13% and male teacher wages 12.5% (11.5% among all teachers). Since 1979 teacher wages relative to those of other similar workers have dropped 18.5% among women, 9.3% among men, and 13.1% among both combined.

• A comparison of teachers' wages to those of workers with comparable skill requirements, including accountants, reporters, registered nurses, computer programmers, clergy, personnel officers, and vocational counselors and inspectors, shows that teachers earned $116 less per week in 2002, a wage disadvantage of 12.2%. Because teachers worked more hours per week, the hourly wage disadvantage was an even larger 14.1%.

• Teachers' weekly wages have grown far more slowly than those for these comparable occupations; teacher wages have deteriorated about 14.8% since 1993 and by 12.0% since 1983 relative to comparable occupations.

• Although teachers have somewhat better health and pension benefits than do other professionals, these are offset partly by lower payroll taxes paid by employers (since some teachers are not in the Social Security system). Teachers have less premium pay (overtime and shift pay, for example), less paid leave, and fewer wage bonuses than do other professionals. Teacher benefits have not improved relative to other professionals since 1994 (the earliest data we have on benefits), so the growth in the teacher wage disadvantage has not been offset by improved benefits.

• The extent to which teachers enjoy greater benefits depends on the particular wage measure employed to study teacher relative pay. Based on a commonly used wage measure that is similar to the W-2 wages reported to the IRS (and used in our analyses), teachers in 2002 received 19.3% of their total compensation in benefits, slightly more than the 17.9% benefit share of compensation of professionals. These better benefits somewhat offset the teacher wage disadvantage but only to a modest extent. For instance, in terms of the roughly 14% hourly wage disadvantage for teachers we found relative to other workers of similar education and experience, an adjustment for benefits would yield a total compensation disadvantage for teachers of 12.5%, 1.5 percentage points less.

• The hourly wage data in the NCS, the relatively new Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, has been used in several recent analyses that found teacher wages to be on par with those of other professionals. Our examination of these data show that the vast differences in the way work time is measured in the NCS for teachers (K-12, as well as university professors, airline pilots, and others) and workers following a more traditional year-round schedule preclude an accurate comparison of teacher hourly wages relative to those of other professionals. These inconsistencies in work hour measurement (hours per week, weeks per year) in the NCS are so large as to obscure a 23.4% greater hourly wage advantage for professionals relative to K-12 teachers.

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Teacher raises for 2006-2007

Springfield 2.5% (proposed)
Nixa 4.6%
Ozark 3.4%
Branson 3.6%
Republic 5%

If these numbers hold, Nixa passes Springfield in base starting salary.

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Board Study Session 8/1/06

Energy Audit - A rep from energy management company ESCO spoke to the board about a proposed $70,000 energy audit that would initially focus on energy efficient lighting but would also provide general information about all other energy systems (roofing, cooling, heating, windows, etc.).

Future Issues - the levy rate will be set by the end of August after updates from the County Assessor's office are complete. Indications point to a "roll-out" of approximately half of last year's ill-conceived levy rollback.