Will Tucson district dip into teacher raise pool?

Here we go.

Just a week after Gov. Doug Ducey signed a budget allocating $272 million to give teachers a 9 percent pay raise, the first school district is in with a plan to offer teachers …

Less than a 9 percent raise. Potentially a lot less.

It seems Tucson Unified School District Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo wants to use the money to give pay raises to all “educators.”

“I see us supporting the educators as defined by this movement, those that are touching the lives of kids and working directly with kids,” he told the

Arizona Daily Star’s Hank Stephenson. “It’s about the monitors, it’s about teachers, it’s about the counselors, it’s about the custodians, it’s about the secretaries at our schools, it’s about the office assistants.”

No word as yet on whether it’s also about administrators. We’ll see when he presents his budget to the school board.

I mean no disrespect, but when did custodians and office assistants become “educators?” Did I miss the memo that said Arizona is in crisis mode due to a shortage of lunch ladies and secretaries?

Certainly, the employees who support the work of the schools touch the lives of children, and they deserve a raise. So do state employees who haven’t seen a raise in years — unless they happen to work in Ducey’s office, that is.

But this is Arizona, where the Republicans who run things haven’t valued public schools. Not until teachers finally got fed up and raised a #RedforEd ruckus did our leaders magically find the cash to offer teachers a 9 percent raise.

I would reconsider employing the old bait-and-switch — especially if you’re a school district that’ll be asking voters this fall to raise their property taxes for bonds and budget overrides.

The most frequent question I get from readers is why the lot of Arizona’s teachers — some of the most poorly paid in the country — hasn’t improved despite a sales tax that was sold to voters on the premise of better pay for teachers.

And why the lot of teachers didn’t improve after the 2016 passage of Proposition 123, which was sold to voters as a way to get more money into teachers’ paychecks.

Now school districts are going to sweep money intended to make it easier to recruit and retain teachers and put it into the salaries of office assistants and bus drivers?

The Arizona Association of School Business Officials has recommended that school districts use the teacher raise money only for those who have “certification and employment as a

teacher” and who devote “at least 50 percent of (their) time to instruction central to the school’s educational mission.”

That would mean art and music teachers would get a raise. Counselors? No.

That ASBO says, is “the most legally and politically defensible position, given the legislative intent language.”

Fortunately, some districts are doing that — and more.

The Yuma Union High School District school board this week approved a 12 percent pay raise for teachers and other certificated employees, supplementing the 9 percent with existing revenues from the Prop. 301 sales tax. Classified employees who make more than minimum wage will get a 4 percent raise, and administrators 3 percent. (Other than the superintendent, that is, who declined a pay raise.)

Then, there’s Tucson, where fortunately not everyone sounds on board with diverting money intended for teachers to other employees.

Governing Board President Mark Stegeman told Stephenson the priority is boosting teacher pay so the school district can fill vacancies.

Meanwhile, Jason Freed, president of the Tucson Education Association, said all employees should get raises in the next school year, even if it means teachers will get less than the 9 percent — which he calls “a fallacy that the governor is pushing.”

Trujillo, who will present his budget next week, sounds adamant about divvying up the prize.

“I don’t think you’re going to see me recommend a scenario that would say, ‘Take every single bit of funding that we’re receiving and throw it at the salaries of one employee group, or one particular position,’ ” he said. “I don’t think that’s consistent with the message of the (#RedForEd) movement.”

It is, however, consistent with the message of the people at state Capitol who doled out the dough.

Under the state budget, Tucson Unified gets $11 million for teacher pay and another $4 million in soft capital funding, money that could be used to give the support staff a boost if that’s the district’s biggest priority.

Is it enough?

Not even close. You can’t lift Arizona’s public schools out of a $1 billion hole with $400 million.

But you can at least take care of the most important people in those schools — the ones for whom the money was intended: the teachers.