Same principle as previous post. School districts ranked from top to bottom in Hamilton County. Length of bar indicates salary for a teacher having completed his/her masters degree. Blue line is current Wyoming salary, red line is Board proposal, green line is teacher request. In this case difference between offer and request is $497/year.
Even at the teacher’s request, a master’s degree is worth more at over half the school districts in the county, meaning that our top teachers – those with the most formal education in their fields – are volunteering to get paid less than masters degreed teachers in Reading, Deer Park, Princeton, even Cincinnati. The Board position is that’s not enough. The Board wants to pay less than Norwood, Madeira, Southwest too.
Seriously…at what point does in become apparent that the legacy this administration is creating will adversely impact the quality of education in the classrooms, the state test results of our students, the district’s ranking statewide and, ultimately, the value of our investment in the community.
I used to have a boss that had a great saying about taking steps to minimize risks – “minimize the maximum risk”. Our maximum risk is that the educational caliber of our schools deteriorates. We should be doing everything possible to minimize the probability of that occurrence. Keeping the quality of our teaching group today does far more to minimize that maximum risk than building a new middle school or middle school gymnasium at some point in the undetermined future. Will we need a new middle school at some point – maybe and it’s immaterial if the community crown jewel has been tarnished in the process.
Pretty buildings are nice but they won’t replace committed, invested teachers.