Salary levels for teachers in HISD unresolved

By MELANIE MARKLEY

August 7, 2000 Web posted at: 4:13 PM EDT (2013 GMT)

In this story: Dallas plan touted Newer teachers leaving RELATED STORIES

HOUSTON, Texas (The Houston Chronicle) -- Teachers in HISD are preparing for the onslaught of students next week. But as they ready classrooms and write lesson plans, they still do not know what their salaries will be for the coming school year.

Houston Independent School District officials say they are just being deliberate, working to design the best salary schedule they can with available resources.

All the while, the district's largest teachers union is using the time to lobby for a big salary boost for experienced teachers. With 28 years of experience, their pay tops out at at $48,892.

Union leaders are using Superintendent Rod Paige's contract as ammunition to push for an across-the-board raise similar to the 26 percent boost he received in May. That's when trustees made him the highest-paid school chief in the nation.

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A clause in Paige's contract ties his raise to the average raise given to teachers every year.

"If they can damn well give Rod a 26 percent raise, they had better do something decent for the teachers," said Houston Federation of Teachers President Gayle Fallon.

But HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said the contract does not obligate the board to give teachers the same raise that Paige received.

"I think the language in the contract speaks very clearly," he said. "It ties Dr. Paige's raise to the teacher raise. It doesn't tie the teacher raise to Dr. Paige's raise."

Board member Laurie Bricker said raising Paige's annual salary to $275,000 was a market-driven move to keep a superintendent who was being recruited by other urban districts.

Teacher salaries are too low, she said, but "we are limited by the budget we have to work with. We are limited by the revenue we have. The only thing we can hope to do and that we always intend to do is to be competitive."

In mail-outs to business and political leaders, Fallon has been touting longevity pay for veteran teachers similar to a plan adopted last May in Dallas.

The Dallas plan gives 15-year teachers an extra $1,000 a year, 20-year teachers $2,500, 25-year teachers $4,000 and 30-year teachers $5,000.

This fall, a 30-year teacher in Dallas will make $55,246, well above what an experienced teacher made in Houston last year. Starting pay in Dallas will be $33,000. Last year's starting pay in Houston was $32,003.

Katrina Robertson Reed, associate superintendent for human resources in Dallas, said the pay boost for veterans has helped reduce vacancies in the classroom.

"It has helped us tremendously," she said. "It helped us in keeping people here who probably would have left, and they've been real clear about that."

Aldine for years has paid extra for teachers who stick with the district. A third-year teacher, for example, starts earning an additional $100 a year for up to 20 years on the job.

Although Aldine's starting salary of $32,500 is below what its neighbors offer, it pays more than any other area district for teachers with experience.

"We feel like we've got to do that to compete for people who have to drive, who do not live in our district, to keep them attracted to our school district," said Aldine Superintendent Sonny Donaldson.

Fallon said that while HISD offers respectable beginning salaries, teachers with experience are being shortchanged. As a result, she said, they are opting for early retirement and leaving the profession.

"It's kind of like rowing a leaky rowboat," she said. "We wouldn't need as many teachers at the front end if we fixed the hole at the back. Until they stop that hemorrhage at the back end where they walk out at 51 or 52 or whenever they hit 30 years, they are going to keep needing new teachers."

Michael Verdone, president of the Houston Congress of Teachers, said he has been supporting a big pay boost for veteran teachers for years.

But he is not optimistic that veteran teachers will be getting a significant raise this year. HISD teachers will be lucky to get a 4 percent or 6 percent across-the-board raise, he said.

"They are philosophically not in tune with rewarding veteran teachers," he said. "Their motives appear to be recruiting and retaining younger teachers."

Abbott said statistics do not back up Fallon's claim that the veteran teachers are the ones leaving HISD. The highest turnover, he said, is among new teachers.

Since Sept. 1, 1999, he said, 630 teachers with nine years of experience or less left the district. That represents 12 percent of the teachers with less than 10 years' experience, he said.

During that same time, he said, the district lost just 235 teachers who had been with HISD for 20 years or more. That represents 6.1 percent of the teachers with at least 20 years of experience.

"Clearly, the problem is in attracting and keeping new teachers," he said, "much more so than in keeping experienced teachers."

Abbott said he does not know when the district will finalize its salary proposal, which has to be approved by the board before the end of the month.

Paige declined to discuss what raise, if any, the district is considering for teachers.

"It wouldn't be appropriate to discuss it at this point," Abbott said. "No decisions have been made."

Teacher group representatives are not too happy about the wait.

"It's unfair not knowing what you are making going into a school year," Verdone said.

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