01/05/2020
The Chatham Central Schools Teachers' Association spoke at Chatham Board of Education meeting in December. We were hoping our statement in public comment would persuade the whole board to avoid the impasse that we have come to in negotiations. Below is the statement made by our president with many of our members in attendance. Our proposal would not require an increase in taxes or impact student programming. We are asking for the board to use the money already budgeted for teacher salaries (which went into the general fund) to pay our teachers and teaching assistants a fair and competitive wage. We are looking for the community's support so if you could take the time to send an email to the board letting them know you support our proposal, we would greatly appreciate it. The board members' emails are: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Statement made to the school board in December:
Good evening, I am Jill Chittenden, president of Chatham Central Schools Teachers’ Association, and I am here tonight to speak on behalf of our members. We have been working over the past nine months to come to a new contract agreement with the District. However, recently we have come to impasse and, therefore, I feel it is necessary to make this statement to the Board this evening.
We are very disappointed we could not come to an agreement; we feel strongly that our offer was fair and would have moved us closer to being competitive with other county schools. What is more disheartening is that we were so close to a compromise, only half a percentage annually. That money which is about $42,000, divided among our members equals less than $300 per person each year. To put that in perspective, the District administrators sitting in front of me tonight have had over $50,000 in raises over the last 2 years, or approximately $8,300 per person annually.
As an association, we have always been proud of the relationship we have with the Board of Education. We have worked together to bring the best education to our students and serve this community to the best of our abilities. We have been supported by the Board through approval of new classes to expand the course catalog we offer Chatham students. We have been encouraged to explore field trip opportunities to expose students to new and different learning experiences. However, we have not been supported financially in our salaries by this Board. We are the lowest paid teachers and teaching assistants in Columbia County, despite being one of the best performing schools in a number of categories.
We are asking for an increase in our salary to remain competitive county wide. We are consistently losing good teachers as they move to higher-paying districts. They do not leave because of the culture, the community or the students at this school -- we all know we excel in those areas. They leave because financially they cannot afford to remain at the Chatham Central School District. This inability to recruit and retain good teachers is also impacting the District’s bottom line as it is required to train and mentor new teachers each year. Moreover, the District has to hire new teachers at a more competitive salary, which means putting them on equal financial footing with teachers who have served this District for many years. For a district which prides itself on connections, the increasing turnover is a disservice to our students.
We are not being unreasonable in our salary proposal. Last year alone there was $346,000 left over from the teacher’s salary line in the budget. Taxpayers approved a budget for teacher salaries that the District instead used to pad reserve funds.
The board meetings in November were a showcase of the scores and outcomes of our students from elementary to high school. The data was compared with other schools and state scores and, in most cases, we were comparable or performing higher than other schools. However, to compare our salaries is another story. Our proposal would move us closer to other county schools, but would still be much lower than Ichabod’s salary schedule, which they just settled.
We know how special Chatham is and we care about the students here. We value this community and are simply asking the Board to value our contribution to it.
