Seminole schools, union OK deal

Agreement to boost base pay short of DeSantis’ goal

The base pay for classroom teachers in Seminole County’s public schools would rise to $46,310 this year under a tentative agreement the Seminole County School Board approved Tuesday.

The agreement, which now goes to teachers for a vote, would fall short of the $47,500 goal set by Gov. Ron DeSantis when he ushered a teacher pay package through the Florida Legislature this spring.

But Seminole’s plan, like that in neighboring Lake County, would give big pay hikes to brand new teachers and others in the early years of their careers, as the governor wanted.

Lake’s plan, approved by its school board Monday, raises the minimum pay to $44,750.

“I’m thankful, finally, we can put some money back into teachers salaries,” said Marc Dodd, a member of the Lake County School Board, at Monday’s meeting

But Dodd, echoing the views of others across Central Florida, said he wished Florida’s new teacher pay law did not focus so much on pay for beginning teachers.

“I’m still struggling to understand why the state doesn’t value the veteran teacher and why it doesn’t value their experience,” he said.

The starting teacher pay in Seminole now is $40,000 and in Lake its $40,400, so those with little to no experience would see big raises. In Seminole, for example, a teacher new to the profession this year would get a nearly 16% raise. But veteran instructors in both counties would see smaller increases to their paychecks — between 1% and 2% in Lake and 1.4% in Seminole.

The initiative DeSantis championed aimed to boost minimum pay from its current average of about $38,000 statewide to $47,500, part of an effort to make the teaching profession more attractive.

DeSantis signed a bill in June that earmarked $500 million for teacher pay, but 80% of what school districts received had to go to boosting the minimum classroom teacher salary to as close to $47,500 as possible. The other 20% could go to salary hikes of teachers already earning more or those, such as counselors and instructional coaches, not classified as classroom teachers.

State leaders said the new pay law will help more than 50% of Florida’s 180,00 classroom teachers, including veterans now earning less than $47,500.

In Lake, nearly 70% of teachers were below the new approved minimum. In Seminole, it was less than 50%.

The new money is a “monumental investment” in public ed

ucation and a boon to the state’s teaching profession, said Jacob Oliva, chancellor of K-12 education at the Florida Department of Education, in a July memo to school superintendents.

“This investment is the single largest teacher compensation increase ever in Florida and a statement to the nation that Florida is elevating the teaching profession,” he wrote.

All of Florida’s school districts are to submit a pay plan, worked out with their local unions, to the state by Thursday, showing how they would distribute the money. Both the Orange and Osceola county school districts are still bargaining their pay plans with their local unions. A spokesman for Orange County Public Schools said another bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, and the district would know better after that what information it would send to the state on Thursday.

After DeSantis signed the pay bill, the state’s teachers unions praised the state for putting money toward teacher pay, even as the coronavirus pandemic decimated the state economy. But many union leaders and veteran teachers worried the new pay plan did little for those with years of experience in the classroom.

Dan Smith, president of the Seminole Education Association, the local teachers union, said the state’s pay plan was “insulting” to veteran teachers, especially when many were working long hours this semester to manage both online and inperson classes required because of the pandemic.

“The burden placed on teachers this year…is beyond excessive,” Smith told the school board.

At Lake’s meeting Monday, Dodd said he was already hearing from upset teachers, who also now will vote on the plan.

Just- out- of-college teachers in Lake could soon be earning the same as someone with 12 to 16 years of experience who earned “highly effective” evaluations, mentored new colleagues and worked to refine their “craft,” Dodd said. That is “a clear insult to teachers, particularly those who are veterans.”

The state’s salary package was funded in part because the state agreed to end the Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarship Program, a controversial initiative that tied teacher bonuses to the ACT or SAT scores they earned back in high school. Dodd said he appreciated the state earmarking money for salaries, after years of focusing on bonus programs, but it needed to come “without the strings attached to we can reward the teachers fairly.”

Board chair Kristi Burns agreed.

“I’m sorry the state mandated how 80 percent of the money was going to be spent,” she said. “I know it’s going to be frustrating for teachers, and I’m sorry.”

In Seminole, board member Kristine Kraus shared a similar message Tuesday: “We’ve got to do better.”