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Thursday the Naperville District 203 School Board sent a letter detailing its recent teacher contract offer to parents and members of the community who have subscribed to the Talk203 email system . This communication was despite an agreement made Wednesday with mediators for the School Board and the Illinois Education Association (IEA) not to communicate publicly except by joint statements - and clearly is an attempt to do an end-run around the teacher’s union (IEA).

The District’s offer reduces annual salary increases from a current average per teacher rate of 5.37%, according to the Naperville Sun, to 4.99% a year. The Daily Herald points out this still does not make Naperville’s top-ranked school educators the top payed for the area. The District 203 School Board made a comparison available on it’s website (see this pdf file). According to the School Board’s figures

- Teachers with a bachelor’s degree and no experience currently earn $38,540 — the second highest amount of six (Naperville 203 plus five neighboring districts).

- Teachers with a master’s degree and no experience currently earn $43,338, the fourth highest amount of six (Naperville 203 plus five neighboring districts).

Things don’t get better in relation to the other districts with time. At five years experience top earners for District 203 rank third. At ten years fourth. At 15 years and 20 years District 203 teachers at the top of the salary scale rank fifth.

Of course, given the cost of living in Naperville, these entry-level salaries (and many of the salaries of experienced teachers) would not permit a family with children to live here on one income - and in the case of two new teachers trying to raise a family, they would fall substantially below the mean income in Naperville - even if they had master’s degrees.* While District 203 extends beyond the city of Naperville to include part of Lisle and some subdivisions Bolingbrook, Warrenville, and Woodridge - it is fair to say that in most if not all these cases the entry-level and short-tenure teachers fall below the mean income of the families whose children they teach.

Illinois Education Association President Dave Griffith points out the comparison of merit,

“Our academic performance…is the highest of all of them…. Would the community be happy with middle-of-the-road or middle-of-the-pack performance?”

I think the answer to that is “no” - and Griffith is reported by the Daily Herald to have said that Naperville teachers aren’t looking to be the highest paid among neighboring districts, but they are looking to make up some of that ground.

While the School District may hope to save around a million annually with their teacher pay proposal,** there are places to save tens of millions of dollars and more in Naperville and DuPage’s budgets, such as in road construction (which could be reduced by better mass transit, and bicycle and walking paths). Telling our top of the line, world class teachers that they aren’t worth top of the line pay is a mistake and insult. So is reducing their health benefits - another part of the contract proposal. Naperville teachers not only educate our children, providing them with the skills they need to succeed, but they also are responsible for maintaining our property values (as any realtor can tell you). They deserve at least a good wage for exceptional results.

The Naperville District 203 School Board should honor negotiating rule agreements. They also should pay our teachers what they’re worth.

Notes:

* I realize that some of my calculations about “entry-level salaries (and many of the salaries of experienced teachers) [that] would not permit a family with children to live here on one income” should be spelled out a bit more. If you look at the link it refers to a study that uses “fair-market monthly rent” for DuPage County, set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The availability of such rent in Naperville (e.g. “$906 a month for a two-bedroom apartment”) is less than in other areas of DuPage, where it is also scarce (particularly given the increase in energy costs that get factored into the “fair market rent” (FMR) - the data given is from 2004). Using the $906 figure as a base for the minimum of what a family would reasonably need (i.e. two bedrooms), the salary necessary to pay the standard 30% of income for rental housing would be about $36,225. This, again, is not geared for the relatively more expensive Naperville (and not DuPage) market. For another (out-of-date but still suggestive) view on the housing market - see what housing affordability looks like for those who want to buy.

** The “annually” was inserted by me after the original post - while I don’t have the exact figure, given the percentage of the annual cut, the number of teachers (about 1,350) and a reasonable guess as to average salary it seems that a million dollars a year may be an overly generous estimate of savings.