Austin school leaders pitching housing program for teachers
Mean market value of Austin home too much for average teacher.
Some Austin school district leaders are entertaining the idea of creating “teacherages,” affordable housing for teachers.
Grappling with a turnover of about 800 teachers annually and with losing experienced staff to neighboring school districts with higher salaries and lower home prices, some Austin school district leaders are entertaining the idea of creating “teacherages,” affordable housing specifically for teachers.
While unusual for an urban district, the concept isn’t new. Several other Texas school districts, particularly in rural areas, have offered subsidized housing as a way to attract or retain teachers.
The average market value of a home within the Austin school district is $350,631, outside the reach of the district’s average teacher, who makes about $46,000 a year. If the housing idea gets off the ground, it could include other civil servants, such as police.
The Austin district’s turnover rate of 15 percent for 2013-14 was actually under the state average of 16 percent. But losing veteran teachers to suburban districts has been a constant concern because of the wage and housing cost disparities. A report issued last month suggests that many of the teachers leaving Austin are still staying in the profession. It found that 39 percent of the teachers who left after the 2013-14 school year said they were headed to another district. Other reasons the teachers cited for departing included being dissatisfied with campus leadership or working conditions.
The neighboring Round Rock and Leander districts lost 12.6 percent and 10.9 percent respectively after the 2013-14 school year.
While labor leaders say
boosting pay will help keep valued staff, school district officials, who approved 3 percent raises this year, say the state does not put enough money into public education for more substantial pay raises.
Considering such options as building affordable housing for teachers on some of the district’s nearly 55 acres in various surplus properties could offer another way to keep teachers working and living in Austin.
“Instead of just straight compensation, we’re trying to come up with different ways to offer additional incentives or benefits,” said district Trustee Paul Saldaña. “There’s no reason why we can’t do it.”
An expert on supply and demand for teachers and principals agrees that it is worth looking into.
“They ought to go down that road and see what they can figure out, but it’s not going to solve the problem,” said Ed Fuller, a Penn State associate professor. “It’s going to help, but how much it is going to help is hard to tell. The only way to solve the problem is to make sure teachers are well supported and have good leaders. “
Squeezed out
Burnet Middle School counselor Mathew Doeckel, 30, and his wife, an elementary school librarian, lived and worked in Austin. But as their apartment rent increased, they purchased a home five years ago in Pflugerville for about the same monthly payment. Eventually, his wife left the Austin district for higher pay and a shorter commute in Round Rock.
“We tried to find a place in Austin, but on our income it wasn’t possible to find a place that met what we were looking for and could be afforded,” Doeckel said.
Doeckel said he’s not sure whether the district’s idea for teacherages would have changed the decision his family made.
But it could make a difference for other educators, supporters say.
Attorney David Mendez has school district clients that have created such housing, and he said the concept has helped attract talent and dates back decades. His mother, for example, was hired in the 1930s to teach in a one-room schoolhouse and was provided housing. The courts and the Texas attorney general’s office also have approved districts going to voters to use bond money to building teacher housing.
“Districts have been doing this for many years for exactly the same problem, attracting teachers to come to their communities to teach,” Mendez said. “We’re applying a very traditional Texas mechanism to just a different iteration, thinking of it for a larger community rather than a rural community.”
The Austin district has tried other measures, including a $62 million incentive program, to help boost retention, particularly in high-needs schools with higher turnover percentages, with mixed results. While the incentives helped retain teachers and principals in some schools, turnover actually increased at several campuses where the money was offered.
‘Worth exploring’
Saldaña said he has been in talks with city and county leaders on how to provide teacher housing. Those leaders also have expressed interest in affordable housing projects for a broader group of civil servants. Saldaña said such housing is a “top priority” for him, and he wants to get at least one project in the ground by the end of his first term.
He said the small group of leaders have floated ideas such as using district property to build housing and possibly having one or more of the other local government entities finance the project.
Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea sees promise in the concept.
“We need to get creative about every possible way that we can to help our basic community servants to be able to live here and provide services here, and teacher housing is a part of that,” she said.
There have only been preliminary talks about the affordable housing concept, and many details haven’t yet been discussed, such as what kind of housing, which teachers could live there, how it would be financed and where it would be located.
“Whatever we can do to attract and keep the best teachers is worth exploring,” school board President Gina Hinojosa said.
Ken Zarifis, president of labor group Education Austin, the district’s largest teacher organization, said he is concerned teachers aren’t paid enough in Austin. He said he would support affordable housing for teachers, but “retention is a tricky thing; it’s hard to know what does it.”
Still, he applauded district, city and county leaders for “getting out of the traditional thinking and assessing what the problems are and trying to come up with the solutions to solve them.”
“It’s going to take this kind of thinking going forward,” Zarifis said.