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As a way to stem high teacher turnover, one San Francisco Bay Area district has taken a daring leap to boost teacher salaries and address escalating housing costs that drive teachers away.
But the pay raises come with potential risk, as the West Contra Costa Unified school district will have to cut from some programs and find other savings to pay for the $37 million in salary increases for all employees over three years.
The pay raises, which also include salary boosts for non-teaching staff such as administrators, secretaries and bus drivers, commit the district to drastic cuts through 2020-21 that the board has not yet identified.
The Contra Costa County Office of Education warned that the district could be unable to pay for the raises if it continued deficit-spending. To ensure that the district could afford the union contracts, the board agreed to adopt a resolution requiring it to identify spending cuts in 2019-20 and 2020-21 that would show it will have enough money to pay for the increases.
“It is our expectation that this and any future salary settlements will include expenditure reductions necessary to maintain a balanced budget without structural deficits for the current and two subsequent fiscal years,” wrote Bill Clarke, the county office of education’s associate superintendent of business and administrative services in a letter to the district.
Teachers are slated to get a 17 percent boost through 2020, which includes a 5 percent raise that began in March. The substantial hike will increase the salary of a beginning teacher from $44,152.20 before the March raises to $50,921.72 by July 1, 2020. It also puts West Contra Costa teachers at the top of the teacher pay scale in Contra Costa County over the next three years for beginning teachers with 30 additional educational units, as well as for more experienced teachers.
The higher pay is just one part of a district strategy to attract and keep teachers. Other features include four days of intensive training for all new teachers before school begins and the possible development of new housing for teachers and other employees on surplus property.
“Our efforts to increase compensation and find solutions to the housing challenges are among the solutions we believe will be most effective to recruit and retain the most highly qualified educators for our students,” said Superintendent Matthew Duffy.
The teachers’ contract also includes caps on class sizes, more paid time for teachers to collaborate on lessons and a more generous maternity/parental leave program in the district, which serves about 28,000 students in Richmond and surrounding communities.
In response to the county’s concerns about the district’s ability to afford the pay increases, the board voted 4-1 to approve a resolution on June 27 that requires it to identify by Dec. 31 spending cuts of $10 million for 2019-20 and $3.5 million the following year. Clarke had assured the district that his office would agree that West Contra Costa Unified would be able to pay for the salary hikes “with the approval of this resolution.”
Board President Valerie Cuevas said district leaders are allocating more discretionary money to schools, giving them greater spending autonomy. This means the board may cut some programs it has paid for districtwide – such as the Playworks recess program and Graduate Tutors – but individual sites could still fund them.
The board made these budget tradeoffs to prioritize “investment in people,” Cuevas said.
The salary increases are part of a larger plan aimed at keeping 80 percent of teachers for five years or more by 2022. District leaders see a stable teaching force as a way to improve student achievement, which is far below state averages on standardized tests.
To reach the teacher retention goal, school board members on June 27 approved a “Roadmap 2022” that includes five areas of focus for staff: competitive compensation, extra support for new teachers, exploring the development of employee housing, cutting down on duplication in programs or services and launching a “Teach West Contra Costa” website and social media campaign to attract more teachers.
To enable more teachers and other staff members to live in the district, the board also agreed to continue exploring the idea of converting surplus property into workforce housing. The district hired a commercial real estate firm to evaluate four district-owned properties to determine whether they would be appropriate development sites. After DCG Strategies determined that two sites warranted further study, the board directed the firm to continue analyzing their suitability for district-developed rental housing or sale to an outside developer to raise money for workforce housing.
A district survey returned by about 25 percent of staff reveals that 70 percent of employees who are renters have considered leaving the district due to high housing costs and 62 percent are interested in living in a district-owned rental unit at below market rents.
Of those renters, 51 percent pay more than 35 percent of their incomes toward rent, including 12 percent who pay more than 55 percent of their income to rent.
“It’s a critical issue,” said board member Madeline Kronenberg. “We’ve raised salaries, but we’re all aware that we’re in a housing crisis. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t even be thinking of this.”
The district has also partnered with a San Francisco-based for-profit startup company called Landed to provide down payment assistance to employees, which must eventually be repaid. And Duffy has testified in Sacramento in support of AB 2788 by Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, which would help establish a California School Employee Housing Assistance Grant Program.
Supt. Matt Duffy joins @AsmTonyThurmond in testifying on AB2788, a bill to help fund development of teacher housing. #teacherhousing #wholechildwholecommunity #LearningEveryDay pic.twitter.com/QyLoN0MMc1
— West County Schools (@WCCUSD) April 11, 2018
The district’s added support for new teachers includes four days of in-depth training before school begins that helps educators “prepare for the rigors of the year,” according to a board presentation on teacher retention earlier this year. The district has also created a “new teacher collaborative” that meets monthly and offers two one-day workshops throughout the year on topics of interest to the group.
Cuevas said the programs are aimed at helping teachers feel welcome and connected to the district. In addition, she said the district is focusing more attention on “school culture and climate” to help build inviting environments for teachers that will encourage them to stay.
The district’s strategy to attract and keep teachers seems to be paying off. Already, teacher retention appears to be “really much stronger going into next year,” Duffy said during the June 27 board meeting. Pleased by the progress Duffy has made in shifting district priorities since he was hired two years ago, the board unanimously extended his contract through June 30, 2021 and gave him a $5,000 a year raise based on his “above satisfactory” job performance.
Demetrio Gonzalez, president of United Teachers of Richmond, and teacher Jesus Galindo said they have seen a “culture shift” in the district that includes more teamwork and the encouragement of new ideas to meet students’ needs. But Gonzalez said at the June 27 board meeting that teachers need more training in dealing with behavior issues related to child trauma to help students who are foster youth, or who have experienced violence or other traumatic incidents.
Galindo, who just finished his fifth year teaching in the district at Lincoln Elementary, said he is committed to “creating a counter-narrative in Richmond” that contradicts the negative perceptions some people hold about the abilities of low-income, children of color to achieve.
Theresa Harrington/EdSource Today
Jesus Galindo, 27, has taught in West Contra Costa Unified for five years.
The only way to improve students’ education, Galindo said, is for teachers to keep coming back each year, sharing their expertise with each other and improving their own abilities. At Lincoln, he said teachers now work as a team and turnover has dropped from 17 educators leaving after his first year to virtually the entire staff planning to return next year.
“It’s only when you stay a long time that you really start to punch the gut of the status quo,” Galindo said. “I want teachers to stay for a really long time because that’s what makes a difference.”
Galindo said he appreciates the raises and saved up enough money to purchase a home 5 minutes away from his school, which has enabled him to become part of the community and to feel more connected to his students and their families. Because he is now spending more than 33 percent of his income on housing, Galindo said he doesn’t own a car and rarely buys new clothes.
Union members overwhelmingly approved the contract with 85 percent voting in favor, Gonzalez said, adding that teachers feel especially fortunate to get such large increases – which will put them at top salary ranges in Contra Costa County over the next three years – while unions in other parts of the state including nearby Oakland are having trouble negotiating pay raises.
“Most people seemed very happy with the deal,” Gonzalez said.
Comparison data provided by the union shows that first-year West Contra Costa teachers with 30 additional educational units earned $47,485 annually before the most recent raises – 6th from the bottom countywide. With the new raise, that salary will jump to $52,452.95 for 2018 (second from the top), then to top in the county at $55,107 in 2020-21. Similarly, the highest salaries at the maximum level for veteran teachers with master’s degrees will rise from $90,000 before the raises to nearly $103,800 by 2020, also top in the county.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
The move puts the fate of AB 2222 in question, but supporters insist that there is room to negotiate changes that can help tackle the state’s literacy crisis.
Comments (3)
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Gloria Lucioni 5 years ago5 years ago
Love your info to compare with LAUSD here in the south! Awesome!
Lawrence Pang 6 years ago6 years ago
Todd, I agree that starting salary should be the highest priority for attracting teachers (and recent changes to the contract have prioritized starting salary over experienced teachers), but increasing the pay of experienced teachers is important for retention, as well. Most school districts allow you to bring some experience with you (I've seen as much as 10 years), so there has to be some financial incentive for experienced teachers to stay. No data … Read More
Todd, I agree that starting salary should be the highest priority for attracting teachers (and recent changes to the contract have prioritized starting salary over experienced teachers), but increasing the pay of experienced teachers is important for retention, as well. Most school districts allow you to bring some experience with you (I’ve seen as much as 10 years), so there has to be some financial incentive for experienced teachers to stay. No data is presented in this article that suggests that retention is a problem, except the anecdote of 17 teachers leaving Lincoln Elementary in one year — that’s probably more than half of the staff. The retention problem in WCCUSD, however, has been pretty well-documented via exit surveys and other sources.
The article focuses mainly on the county, but current employees will consider school districts throughout the Bay Area. When I first began teaching in this district, I could have increased my salary by $30,000 by heading to the peninsula. With this new adjustment, a starting teacher would increase their salary by $18,000 making the same move, so the situation for beginning teachers has increased dramatically in the last decade-and-a-half.
The yearly salary increases that Todd mentions, which we call step increases, average 2% over 27 years, or 1% over 40 years, with the bulk of the largest increases (3-4%) occurring within the first 7 years of teaching. Guess your private industry 3% is looking a little better, now. By the way, these large increases are very recent. At the beginning of my career, the union was lucky to negotiate a 1.5% raise to the contract.
In the middle years, (13-21 years), increases are essentially non-existent. The last increase occurs in the 28th year of teaching, so for teachers, like myself, who plan to teach 40 years, we will get no increase for the last decade or so of our career.
Average teacher’s pay isn’t really a meaningful tool for comparison, when viewed in isolation, because it is largely a function of experience level. I do, however, like the idea of keeping the average pay the same, but changing the distribution. I’d rather the state set the salaries, rather than local districts. The wealthier districts don’t need to pay as much to attract talent, so the state could redistribute the wealth to lower-income areas without changing the overall cost to the state.
So … while I agree with the sentiment you’ve shared, I don’t think much of it applies to this scenario.
Todd Maddison 6 years ago6 years ago
Notice this is a plan to "attract" teachers, but the vast majority of the spending is going to be on raising salaries for existing employees. Certainly that may help retain employees, but of course no data is presented that indicates there's a problem with turnover - and my own experience in my own district indicates turnover is hardly an issue in any school district. The key to attracting teachers would indeed be to raise the starting pay … Read More
Notice this is a plan to “attract” teachers, but the vast majority of the spending is going to be on raising salaries for existing employees.
Certainly that may help retain employees, but of course no data is presented that indicates there’s a problem with turnover – and my own experience in my own district indicates turnover is hardly an issue in any school district.
The key to attracting teachers would indeed be to raise the starting pay – which, from the step-and-column schedules I’ve seen, is often too low.
Another fundamental fact missing from this article – and others like it – is the fact that this starting pay is determined by the union – not by the district. The union can negotiate whatever starting rate it wants, all the district is concerned about is the overall cost of the contract.
If their contract is anything like all the others I’ve seen, it contains regular pay raises for teachers beginning at year 2 and continuing through to at least year 20. Those raises are typically anything from 2.5 to 4%, which means a “5% raise to the contract” is in reality a 7.5 to 9% raise to the teacher for that year.
Nice work if you can get it, right? Particularly for those of us in private industry who are often struggling to pay our taxes to support those raises, and we often get raises more like 3% per year….
Starting pay? If you examine the step and column schedule, you usually see an outsized bump in the last raise in the schedule – often at least double what the normal average raise is – 6% or more.
The union could easily cut that last raise down to the normal average for the term of the contract and, since that’s a percentage of a pay rate that is often double the starting rate, they could give a huge bump to starting teachers – without spending a penny extra of the money allocated to educating our kids.
But that isn’t what they want to do – they want raises for all, even those who are getting routine raises every single year, and they’re willing to turn a blind eye to the massive raises given to administrative employees as well – because maintaining the fiction that education employees are underpaid is beneficial to their own story …
I don’t live in Contra Costa County, but I welcome anyone who does to take a look at the state J90 form to find out what your district’s teachers actually make – on average – and check Transparent California to see what administrators make.
Then look at the teacher’s contract for your district and do a little math to figure out how high starting teachers’ pay could be raised by simply limiting the more senior teachers pay raise to the average, rather than the outsized bump they often get (necessary to set them up for higher pension payments for the duration of their retirement, of course….)
But, no. Most districts would rather take the money from actual services to actual kids than ask their employees to “make do” with the same raise rates that you and I get, or the same retirement benefits….