Your Ideas and Questions About Teacher Pay in WCCUSD?

As state budget issues persist and school districts like West Contra Costa Unified continue to struggle with their own economic shortfalls, local teacher compensation has assumed increased prominence as a topic of keen public interest.

With the last month and the school board’s decision Monday to put , the district continues to struggle to balance the budget as the public questions whether enough resources are devoted to attracting and retaining good teachers, especially since the district has reduced compensation in past budget cuts.

According to the WCCUSD 2012-2013 budget, the district’s efforts to close the deficit have included the following:

• shortening the work year for all employees (saved $4.4 million per year)
• capping the amount the district pays for health benefits (saved $9.9 million per year)
• increasing class sizes and cutting prep teachers (saved $3.2 million)
• ending the retiree program with uncapped health benefits

While these measures have saved the district money, some El Cerrito Patch readers have posted comments linking teacher compensation with the quality of instruction in the schools and decisions by local families on whether to put their children in schools outside the district.

As one reader posted, “If you want skilled teachers with experience step up and pay them.”

According to the Education Data Partnership Web site, in the 2010-2011 school year, among all school districts in Alameda and Contra Costa counties (except for three that did not report statistics), WCCUSD had the lowest average teacher salary at $53,775.

According to the same statistics, WCCUSD’s lowest offered teacher salary ($35,931) was smaller than all other districts’ except one, and its highest offered teacher salary ($74,235) was the third lowest.

El Cerrito Patch would like to take a closer look at WCCUSD teacher compensation to see how it compares to nearby districts and obtain a better understanding of what impact it has on the classroom and on public perception of our local public schools.

To help us, we want to hear from El Cerrito Patch readers about your thoughts and questions on this topic.

We’d like to know what information you have, what type of information and statistics you think we should look at, and what importance you give teacher compensation among the other challenges facing the district.

We don’t know what results our investigation may yield, but we believe that your ideas and questions can help improve whatever we produce.

We would appreciate your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.

Correction: The article previously stated that the school board decided Monday to put two new parcel tax measures on the November ballot. But in fact, the two ballot meaures were different—one was a parcel tax, and one was a bond. The article has been changed accordingly.