Economic times are tough, so everyone has to be willing to give
a little and focus on the educational progress GUSD has made
Gilroy Unified School District teachers are asking for a 6 percent salary increase, a shade under their initial 7 percent demand.
That demand is over and above the 1 percent increase they’re sure to receive for increased experience. GUSD administrators – who at first offered no raise at all beyond the 1 percent sure-thing raise – suddenly found several hundred thousand dollars when teachers raised the stakes by talking about a strike.
While we’d hardly suggest that the good teachers are overpaid, the other side of that coin is that our public schools are far from overfunded and are looking at further budget cuts, should Sacramento politicians ever get their acts together and pass a long-overdue budget for the Golden State.
“We know this is not a good time to be asking for a salary increase,” GTA President Michelle Nelson told reporter Eric Leins, in what has to be understatement of the fiscal year.
Nelson says GUSD officials have been making promises to get Gilroy teachers’ pay on par with teachers in other Santa Clara County school districts, such as Cupertino, Los Gatos and Palo Alto. Nelson says GUSD teachers earn between 9.5 and 15 percent less than teachers within a 30-minute driving radius of Gilroy. Gilroy teachers are tired of waiting for parity but really couldn’t have picked a worse political or financial climate in which to press their case.
Not only are those districts much wealthier than Gilroy, they also don’t face many of the same challenges from a high percentage of students living in poverty. In addition, teachers in those communities who want to live near their work endure higher costs of living than Gilroy teachers.
All in all, we think GUSD administrators and trustees can’t afford to spend that $935,000 in found money just yet. Prudence requires waiting until after Sacramento’s politicians hammer out a budget deal and seeing how it impacts GUSD finances before spending a dime of that cash.
We’d love to advocate giving GUSD teachers a substantial raise – good teachers deserve it. But it can’t come at the expense of sound fiscal management, and GUSD doesn’t yet have the information it needs from Sacramento to make a call.
Meanwhile, it’s important for both teachers and administrators to focus on the positive educational progress they have made together in the last few years. The momentum of educational progress and internal harmony should not be sacrificed to a salary battle.
We believe that teachers and administrators have established trust enough to work out a fair agreement and that leaders on both sides will take the high road during negotiations.
