It’s a California classic: Underpaid and underappreciated public school teachers are demanding a big raise from their district, whose board members swear they don’t have the money for it. The story has been rehashed by school districts up and down the golden coast—and now, Orcutt Union School District is doing its own rendition.
Salary negotiations between the district and the Orcutt Educators’ Association (OEA) reached an impasse in late January. After six sessions, the district wouldn’t budge from its offer of a 3 percent salary increase, up 1 percent from its initial offer. This was miles from the 9.5 percent raise requested by the OEA, who had come down from 11.5 percent.
The parties met with a state mediator last month, to no avail. Their next state mediator meeting is scheduled for April 13, but Superintendent Debbie Blow said their 3 percent offer won’t change.
“We have great teachers,” Blow said. “We do respect them and appreciate all that they provide our students. Many of them work long, hard hours. I’m not taking away from that in any way. We just can’t offer them more than we can afford.”
OEA President Monique Segura said the OEA is willing to negotiate down from its current request, but not if the board won’t budge.
“We’ve looked at all the moneys that are coming into our district,” Segura said, “and we would like the certified personnel to remain the same portion of the pie as we have been.”
In the 2013-2014 school year, about 44 percent of the district’s budget was allocated to personnel salaries. Due to budget increases in recent years, Segura said personnel pay accounts for only 39 percent of this school year’s budget pie—and that includes the 3 percent raise currently offered by the board.
But Blow said the pie is more complicated than Segura claims.
The recent budget increase came from one-time money, which went toward Common Core implementation and technology improvements. Blow said it would be bad budgeting to use one-time funds for salaries.
“I don’t think all of the teachers appreciate the total budget,” she said. “I think there’s a feeling that maybe there is still money there. I wish there were. But unfortunately, we have been being transparent. We’ve tried not to play a big game, and we’ve put out what we feel we can afford.”
Segura argued that Blow could be part of the problem. Segura said that while the district “absolutely has money in its reserves,” it’s been on a “spending spree” since Blow was hired in 2014.
“We do understand there are some needs,” Segura said of the district’s spending on technology improvements, “but we also think the foundation of a school district is the teaching staff, and the district has not put the teaching staff and the employees as a priority.”
She also pointed out that Blow is contracted for a $180,000 salary, while the median superintendent salary is $148,606, with most falling between $121,398 and $179,322, according to salary.com.
“In my personal opinion, and for many of our members, for our superintendent to take a raise like she did while we’re still in the process is very concerning for the direction our district may or may not be heading,” Segura said.
But Blow said she by no means took a raise, as she made more at her previous district in San Jose. She said superintendent salaries depend on the candidate’s years of experience and educational background, much like teacher salaries do.
“I hold a doctorate degree,” Blow said. “That’s something that is usually factored in [to salary]. Extra experience and extra education are factors on a teacher’s salary, as well.”
Moving away from budget technicalities, Segura said the OEA’s overarching concern isn’t monetary at all: It’s a matter of respect.
“There’s so much more to our negotiation than money,” she said. “We’d like to be collaborative with our school district and be able to discuss the things that are causing problems.”
The OEA channeled this notion into the pins its members have been sporting on their lapels lately: big purple buttons reading “RESPECT.”
Segura, who has worked at Alice Shaw Elementary School for 19 years, said her button has sparked discussion among her 5-year-old students.
“We talk about what respect means, so in terms of their world, what does respect mean for them?” she said. “Respecting our classmates, our peers, our teachers, our parents.”
OEA members have also been wearing all black on Wednesdays to show solidarity. This worries some parents about the potential for teacher-district tensions to enter classrooms, Blow said.
“We’ve tried to keep it as far away from the classroom environment as we can,” she said. “It has the potential to spill over into the classroom. I do think, and I would hope, that our teachers are being professional and trying not to allow it to.”
Segura argued that she and her colleagues are the “utmost professionals,” whose students come first no matter what. Still, Blow said she has received emails from parents complaining that the negotiation issues have affected students.
The sentiments have visibly floated into business communities, where some storefront windows are displaying bright green signs declaring, “this business supports our Orcutt teachers.”
Both the OEA and the board understand that Orcutt Union School District simply won’t have the same budget as other districts do. Orcutt’s neighboring districts teach more English-learners, foster children, and students from impoverished homes—which means more state funding and higher teacher salaries.
Still, a solution is necessary.
If this month’s state mediator meeting goes nowhere, the mediator may choose to send the parties to fact-finding, in which a third-party group will comb through the district’s finances and see whose side holds more traction.
Staff Writer Brenna Swanston can be reached at bswanston@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 7-14, 2016.