Underpaid teachers, overpaid school board, administrators

Four dull Republican School Board members, and one alleged Democrat, continue to keep teacher salaries low in the best-performing school district in the State of Flori-DUH. Is our insensitive St. Johns County School Board a disgrace to the human race?






Guest Column: Time teacher contributions were rewarded
Posted: August 21, 2016 - 12:03am

By ELIZABETH A. BOYETT
St. Augustine
As a St. Johns County public school teacher, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude for the 26 cents per hour raise I was so graciously given by the school board.

This will go a long way in helping me and my family (sic: shouldn't it be "my family and me?") keep up with the rising cost of living in this county, and it will certainly help with the money I spend out of my own pocket for classroom supplies.

I hold a master’s degree and have 18 years of teaching experience. Yet, the St. Johns County School District recently decided that my qualifications are worth only an additional $1.95 a day in compensation.

Of course, this raise does not reflect the time I spend outside of my contract hours answering parent emails and working on paperwork. If I considered those countless hours, the raise would be significantly less.

There are those who may argue that this raise is better than nothing and that teachers make more money than many others in this county.

However, if you compare teacher salaries with those of other professionals with similar qualifications, there is a huge gap.

A study conducted by the National Education Association found that the annual pay for teachers has fallen sharply over the past 60 years in relation to the annual pay of other workers with college degrees.

Throughout the nation, the average earnings of workers with at least four years of college are now over 50 percent higher than the average earnings of a teacher.

Why not leave the profession to make more money, you may ask? The answer is very simple: I have dedicated my life to educating our future.

I knew going into teaching that I would never be a millionaire. However, I did not count on being insulted by the school board year after year with meager raises that do not keep up with the rising cost of living in St. Johns County.

St. Johns County School District has been named the No. 1 school district in the state of Florida for the last seven years.

We are only one of five school districts to be named a Grade A District for the last 11 consecutive years. It’s time our teachers are shown appreciation for their significant contributions to these statistics.

Opinion page editor’s note: The school district’s pay raise arithmetic differed slightly from Ms. Boyett’s, but it appears she was using net pay figures and the district was working off gross pay.