A: That’s the “spread” between the Wyoming district offer and the Wyoming teachers’ request for starting salaries in the district.
To put this differences into perspective, let’s consider it through the eyes of that 2009 education graduate from Miami University up in Oxford. He’s looking to come back home to the Cincinnati area and get a teaching job in one of the many great school districts around town. Of course he starts with Wyoming…who wouldn’t since we’re #1 on the state’s list. After an arduous interview process with, in order, the superintendent’s office, the principal, and finally a couple teachers (who can only ask questions from a list pre-approved by the administration)…he gets a job offer. He must be pretty good since there were probably 100 applications for that position.
Being a math teacher at heart, he looks at the offer and pulls out a summary created by the Wyoming Board of Education comparing starting salaries across all Hamilton County school districts. Quickly he realizes there’s more money to be made working in the Cincinnati School district. That said, Wyoming is a lot more fun (and probably safer) than someplace like, for example, Holmes or Withrow. So Wyoming still wins even if he is getting paid less than his friends who started in Cincinnati.
But wait a minute – he doesn’t have to go down to the city get get a better salary. He could go to Oak Hills (Delhi is a pretty nice area), Deer Park, or Forest Hills (Turpin’s football team is almost as good as Wyoming’s). He also decides there’s more money to be made starting at Madeira, Sycamore, Princeton, and of course there’s always more money to be had in Indian Hill. Remember – this guy is pretty good. He got a job offer from Wyoming so, chances are, he could get an offer from Cincinnati or Deer Park or Princeton. He’s no slouch.
Still, he’s really in love with the Wyoming area and decides to take a starting position at Finneytown because it’s so close…just with a better salary. It’s like Wyoming (near) in the real estate section.
So even with the Teachers’ requested salary package, our young Miami grad has 10 local school districts to choose from where he will make more money from day one than Wyoming. If he ever decides to get his Masters (like 71% of Wyoming teachers) that spread versus his other choices will get even bigger.
Sure Wyoming still has it’s reputational intrinsics (for now) but at some point, when the rubber meets the road in today’s economy, those top rookies are going to look at the comp package and start voting with their feet – populating districts like Deer Park and Finneytown and, yes, even Cincinnati. That’s with the Teachers’ requested salary package. Go with the Board proposal and you can add Loveland to that list too.
Now it’s easy to say “com’on Mart, the new teacher could easily take the job at Wyoming – its not going to kill him to give up $1.59 a day”. Maybe – he’s still going to be underpaid versus teachers in much weaker school districts either way.
But look at it this way. This kid is smart (remember the job offer he got from the top district in the state) and he’s probably carrying $10-20k in college loans he’ll be paying off for the next 5 years. Standing next to him is this guy from the district with $11,000,000 in cash spilling out of his pockets. Your task is to give one of them $1.59 a day – who will feel it more ? Who will show their appreciation for it more every day in the way they interact with your children in the classroom ? Whose life will be different because you decided to take a stand ?
Who will you give it to ?
In the grand scheme of things, it seems unbecoming and just plain petty for a district with over $11,000,000 in the bank to be bickering with the teachers about taking $1.59 a day out of a college grad’s starting salary…especially with all the better financial alternatives (albeit at weaker districts, some by a wide margin) he might have out there today. Let’s face it – $11,000,000 goes a long way for a lot of days and a lot of teachers at $1.59 a day (as long as you’re not trying to use it for something else, like, say…a new school the community doesn’t agree with).
[note: That $11,000,000 bank account makes Wyoming one of the richest districts in the area relative to their annual operating budget.]