Donna Keeley likened her local public school district to a business: a business riddled with constant turnover and an inability to appropriately pay its employees; a business that, barring decisive action, might shutter its doors.
“When people are paid a living wage, they’re more enthusiastic about working and doing a good job,” Keeley, a Pittsfield resident, said. “$37,000 for a bachelor’s degree is not a good salary.”
A first-year educator entering the Pittsfield school district with a bachelor’s degree can expect to earn $37,113. With a master’s degree and 14 years of experience, they can bring home up to $59,242.
At the district’s July 7 deliberative session, residents discussed a collective bargaining agreement approved by the school board and the Education Association of Pittsfield, a teachers union.
Article 6 of the agreement would raise through taxes an estimated total of $144,942 to boost staff salaries and benefits, a sum that would represent 22 cents per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value. For the owner of an average property valued at $400,000, that would cost $88 in taxes.
But like with any business, stakeholders weighed the potential return against the investment.
Pittsfield’s William Rupp questioned whether throwing more money at the school’s existing staff would make any difference in students’ underperforming test scores.
“What are the taxpayers getting for their dollars when they pay the same teachers more money?” he asked the room.
Cleon Riel had a one-word answer for him: “continuity.” Of 164 school districts in the state, Pittsfield has the seventh-lowest average salary and the third-lowest starting salary for teachers. If salaries were more competitive, Riel could see the district drawing in more teaching talent and, most of all, retaining it.
Various school board members chimed in with their conjectures, too: If the four vacancies across the elementary and middle high schools were filled, teachers who are currently spread thin could approach their jobs with renewed focus. Maybe they could even offer extra-curricular assistance, like tutoring.
Rupp clarified that he did not necessarily oppose the agreement. He just wanted numbers — could taxpayers expect the town’s youth to meet testing standards? If so, when?
“It would be lying to say, ‘Yes, we have a data point that’s going to tell you that. And yes, this singular change is going to make that difference,’” said the board’s vice-chairperson, Molly Goggin. “And the singular change is minute. This is not increasing teacher pay to a place where we’re going to, all of a sudden, recruit the creme de la creme of teachers.”
Under the new agreement, an incoming bachelor’s degree-holder with no experience would earn $38,227, a $1,114 increase. A seasoned teacher with 14 years of experience and a master’s degree could earn up to $60,583, a $1,341 increase.
But without any change at all, Pittsfield risks an exodus of current educators, on top of the uphill battle of recruiting new ones, according to Goggin.
On the line for taxpayers? “Having a school,” Goggin said. “Being able to keep a school open.”
Pittsfield residents recently passed a warrant article to explore the possibility of closing the district’s middle-high school. The High School Options Study Committee last met on June 23, and it will eventually deliver a recommendation to the school board.
“I’m here because I’m just shocked to hear that the high school might be closing,” said former Pittsfield Elementary teacher Rebecca Sims at Tuesday night’s deliberation. “It scares the hell out of me.”
With three children who passed through the Pittsfield system, Sims would hate to see the high school shutter its doors, and she does not think the collective bargaining agreement can be reduced to a numerical analysis.
Public schools receive students from diverse educational backgrounds, she said. Transfers from private schools and homeschools who haven’t yet learned from qualified educators may bring the school’s average test score down — not to mention the school’s many special education students, who make strides that go undetected by standardized tests.
“You have to look at every single one of those variables,” she said.
Pittsfield also hosts many students from low-income backgrounds, a reflection of a “property-poor,” “underfunded” town, according to Goggin.
So rather than numbers, Sims’ focus is on teacher satisfaction and, in turn, retention.
“If we don’t keep the people that we have — and many have stayed here for decades, despite their low income — we are gonna lose more and more, and that is an unjust system for our children,” she said.
Pittsfield residents will vote on the collective bargaining agreement on Aug. 4.
