Educators at youth jails see slashed salaries

The company managing four state youth lockups slashed teachers’ annual salaries by nearly a quarter on average in July, leaving one treatment facility without teachers, according to an email from the state’s juvenile ombudsman.

The state Division of Youth Services handed over day-today management of youth prisons in Dermott, Harrisburg, Lewisville and Mansfield to Youth Opportunity Investments on July 1.

Gary Sallee, a spokesman for the Indiana-based company, wasn’t able to provide an exact date for when the pay cuts occurred.

Last year — before Youth Opportunity took over — teachers made an average of $56,054 per year. Now, they earn an average of $42,900, Sallee said.

Youth Opportunity is trying to hire two educators. The group’s “education plan” allows for 15 education staff across all four facilities, Sallee said.

The firm’s goal is to have at minimum a special education teacher, GED coordinator and a third staffer who will coordinate 504 plans for youths with disabilities at each of its facilities, Sallee said.

The company has “longterm interim teachers” in place until vacancies are filled, he said.

But a report from Brooke Digby, the state’s juvenile ombudsman, to the Youth Opportunity president Aug. 11, said the Lewisville Juvenile Treatment Center had no teachers and “is operating without education at this time.”

When Youth Opportunity took over the facilities, the group decided not to retain five teachers, and two more left to teach elsewhere, said Marci Manley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services. The Youth Services Division is part of the department.

Youth Services Division staff have heard concerns from teachers concerning the pay cuts, and officials are talking with Youth Opportunity about the changes, Manley said.

Sallee said Youth Services officials suggested the pay cuts during the transition from state management to the company’s oversight.

“They felt like the teachers were grossly overpaid,” Sallee said.

But Manley said it wasn’t clear Youth Services staff ever expressed that “exact sentiment.”

Agency staff did discuss how to best allocate money, among other issues, a few weeks after Youth Opportunity took over, she said.

Later, Sallee told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette he either misspoke or the reporter misunderstood the division’s involvement, stating the agency wasn’t involved in the analysis or determination teachers were overpaid.

After discussing the issue further with Youth Opportunity executives, he then said the state agency provided the company with “information regarding teachers at the facilities.”

“Education is an important part of a youth’s time with DYS,” Manley said, “and the division has set out specific requirements and criteria YOI must meet regarding delivery of general education, post-secondary education (including vocational education programs), and special education requirements.”

The state took over management from South Arkansas Youth Services at the start of 2017.

After the state took over, it raised some teachers’ salaries. Amounts of raises varied on a case-by-case basis, Manley said.

Youth Opportunity hired Ombudsman Education Services, a division of a third-party group called Chancelight, a Tennessee-based corporation,

to analyze teacher pay, Sallee said.

The Youth Services Division provided the group with the state salary schedule based on experience and education level, Manley said.

“The wages paid by prior management is not a factor in Youth Opportunity’s determination of fair and reasonable wages and working conditions offered to qualified teachers… ,” Sallee said.

Average salaries for Arkansas public school teachers in the 2018-19 school year ranged from $34,675 to $53,187. The averages varied based on education level, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Education.

Teachers at the lockups were allowed to negotiate salaries based on education levels, Sallee said.

But for Teresa Addington, who taught special education at the Lewisville Juvenile Treatment Center for about three and a half years, the negotiation didn’t provide enough to keep her at the job.

Her first offer was for $10,000 less than she made under the state’s control, and even when she negotiated up by $2,000, it wasn’t enough, she said.

There were other factors affecting her departure — some of the boys at Lewisville started to get into fights, and the commute to her new job at a Texas public school is shorter, Addington said.

Addington said when teachers found out Youth Opportunity was taking over, she and others started asking supervisors whether their salaries would change and were repeatedly told no one knew.

Youth Opportunity told teachers about the possibility of pay cuts June 30, Sallee said.

“I was unhappy about that, but I still probably would have stayed longer had they not cut the salary so much,” she said.

In addition to teaching children in special education, Addington was the Virtual Arkansas coordinator at the

Lewisville lock-up. Virtual Arkansas is an online education provider for schools throughout the state.

As Virtual Arkansas coordinator, she helped kids with whatever classes they were taking online — from economics to history to psychology, she said.

“It was actually a pretty hectic job just being the facilitator,” Addington said.

Rich Huddleston, the executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said it’s especially important teachers in the lockups are well-compensated.

“These teachers are trying to teach kids when they’re at one of the most vulnerable points in their lives,” Huddleston said. “… In some cases, you’ve had public schools that they [the kids] have been attending, and the schools have quite frankly given up on these kids.”

Huddleston said teachers in the youth jails also have increased responsibility to screen kids for dyslexia and assess their reading proficiency level after Act 189 passed in the legislative session earlier this year.

“I really hope that we’re not headed in the direction of cutting services just to ensure that the outside company can make the money that they need to make,” he said.

Manley said Youth Opportunity is putting more resources into treatment and the company has increased direct-care staff salaries.

“If you’re cutting teacher salaries, that’s going to limit your ability to attract and retain good teachers, especially in an environment where we need the best teachers,” Huddleston said.

When Addington left, she pulled aside each of the boys she taught to explain to them why she was leaving and to make sure they knew she still cared about them, she said.

“It didn’t matter to me where they come from or what they did,” Addington said. “They were my boys, and they were my kids.”