Teacher Pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They skipped striking and went straight to quitting.

Teachers in Montgomery county can't strike

Ok. They cant strike. So if they strike, they MCPS fires them. Then we have no teachers. MCPS could not possibly fill the entire school system with licensed teachers without drawing from the existing teacher base. Maybe they could hire veterans like they’re doing in Florida but I don’t know how a veteran with no experience is going to be able teach AP Physcis….

How can you prevent people from striking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we all can agree that teachers deserve a higher salary. I think we also can agree that there is a teacher shortage and that some positions are harder to fill than others.

What is the purpose of the teachers union? Why are they not advocating for higher pay? I hear that MCPS teachers cannot strike-why not? Doesn’t that take away the biggest bargaining chip the union has? Why does it seam that the teachers union is not helping to support the teachers?

MCPS teachers have an association whose powers have been limited by the state much more than employees in a traditional "union" such as SEIU which is , I believe, related to AFL-CIO.t Traditional unions have much more power and many more staff working for employee concerns.

Maryland prohibits teacher striking and other powers that traditional unions used.

MCEA has very limited staff and is mostly composed of volunteers who are also full time teachers. MCPS keeps drawing out and complicating procedures that were pro forma in the past. Many times these volunteers are putting extra hours into the MCEA business meetings as mcps does not communicate, show to meetings, etc while also having to keep up their teaching jobs in today's climate and raise families at home. MCPS can keep this up and hope that attrition gives them the upper hand, they are on the clock and not relying on countless volunteer hours from members with increasingly demanding full time jobs.

There are many great ideas about teacher retention. However, there are limited actions that any organization can take when their role is circumscribed by state regulations and their traditional work (e.g. collective bargaining) is blocked by such actions as the other side failing to show up to the meetings, not responding in a timely manner, and other things that consistently show mcps to not be working in good faith in negotiations.

If it's limited staff that are volunteering, why am I paying so much in dues? Where is that money going and to whom? Why was there recently a big hike on the grounds of creating new positions? Is it going to political action, to produce the same Apple Ballot that got us a BOE full of non-responsive clods that both teachers and parents can't stand? My position doesn't even have a rep and our request for one was denied for reasons that were so stupid it made me think leadership is either willfully ignorant or trying to hoard power. MCEA is worthless for anyone who isn't a gen ed classroom teacher. I could be marginalized and ignored for free. Having to pay for the privilege has become increasingly galling. A union that can't strike already isn't worth much.

[Anonymous]

I cannot speak for MCEA, but I am a paraeducator, and the cost is $26 per pay period for SEIU, and you can choose to add another $10 for political lobbying. FWIW, I make less than $19 per hour in my position (and do not get paid for the week between Xmas and New Years, just the 25th and the 1st) and many other non-school days I do not get paid either.

Paras in MCPS get professional development (no other paras in MD get this), were NOT laid off during Covid as they were in other nearby counties, and many other opportunities. I think the union it is worth the cost

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They skipped striking and went straight to quitting.

Teachers in Montgomery county can't strike

Ok. They cant strike. So if they strike, they MCPS fires them. Then we have no teachers. MCPS could not possibly fill the entire school system with licensed teachers without drawing from the existing teacher base. Maybe they could hire veterans like they’re doing in Florida but I don’t know how a veteran with no experience is going to be able teach AP Physcis….

How can you prevent people from striking?

They’re supposed to dissolve the union if they strike.

[Anonymous]

There is a Maryland state law that makes strikes illegal due to the disruption is would cause.

The unions help negotiate salary, benefits and work conditions as well as making sure admin follows the rules including when trying to get rid of a bad teacher. Oftentimes admin screws up the process or doesn’t really want to deal with the process so they end up keeping the teacher instead.

[Anonymous]

My cousin is an Asst. Principal in Florida. She has 20 years of experience and makes 70K. It’s all relative and MCPS should be recruiting like mad from the don’t say gay state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin is an Asst. Principal in Florida. She has 20 years of experience and makes 70K. It’s all relative and MCPS should be recruiting like mad from the don’t say gay state.

$70k goes further in FL than MoCo. Housing and cost of living matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They skipped striking and went straight to quitting.

+1 people need to stop calling it a teacher shortage. There are no shortage of teachers. There’s a shortage of teachers willing to play politics and teach bad curriculum for peanuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a Maryland state law that makes strikes illegal due to the disruption is would cause.

The unions help negotiate salary, benefits and work conditions as well as making sure admin follows the rules including when trying to get rid of a bad teacher. Oftentimes admin screws up the process or doesn’t really want to deal with the process so they end up keeping the teacher instead.

So instead they all just quit? Sounds like a crappy law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a Maryland state law that makes strikes illegal due to the disruption is would cause.

The unions help negotiate salary, benefits and work conditions as well as making sure admin follows the rules including when trying to get rid of a bad teacher. Oftentimes admin screws up the process or doesn’t really want to deal with the process so they end up keeping the teacher instead.

So instead they all just quit? Sounds like a crappy law.

Quitting is far better than striking. For everyone.

[Anonymous]

The TEACH grant gives up to $4000 a year towards education courses for those pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees. So that covers maybe 1.5 course a year at a public university around here. Not very generous considering the high cost of education & the great need for teachers. Much more could be done in terms of loan forgiveness or
Tuition reimbursement for those who want to teach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a deep dive in the county budget and you’ll quickly notice that the biggest chunks go to schools, police and firefighters combined.

Step back and look at the shifting demographics and notice the trends promoting scarcity: older, whiter, wealthier residents are dying or relocating outside of the county and state while younger, immigrant, poorer residents are increasing (some of whom don’t pay taxes because they deal in cash-based industries).

The MoCo of the 1980s is gone. We aren’t as affluent as we were because our tax base has changed. Nonetheless, Annapolis still thinks we are rolling in cash and we consistently get shortchanged. MoCo has done a noble job of supplementing mcps when the state falls short, but it’s not enough.

So, tell me how to come up with money to increase teacher salaries? I’m totally for it btw.

An appropriation won’t happen. How about incentives where we can draw upon other resources? Why not implement full ride scholarships or loan forgiveness for teachers who commit two decades of service? Why not offer a tax break or stipend? Or a special mortgage program? Heck, why not invest in a mixed use housing development where young teachers have free or heavily subsidized housing?

Great ideas. Why is the union advocating for some of these ideas? They seem very reasonable to me.

Look up the federal TEACH grant. It’s not perfect but that’s what it’s intended to do. There are also states that offer similar aid programs for teachers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a Maryland state law that makes strikes illegal due to the disruption is would cause.

The unions help negotiate salary, benefits and work conditions as well as making sure admin follows the rules including when trying to get rid of a bad teacher. Oftentimes admin screws up the process or doesn’t really want to deal with the process so they end up keeping the teacher instead.

So instead they all just quit? Sounds like a crappy law.

Quitting is far better than striking. For everyone.

Tell that to the kids without IEPs being fulfilled, or kids being herded like cattle from room to room because they have no singular teacher, or the teachers that are still there doing twice the work ready to quit too. Sounds great!

[Anonymous]

There are teachers, they just don’t want to be forced to get shots and wear masks and deal with bs school’s and crap salaries. Can’t blame them. Kids in 10 years are going to have it rough though, you will have to do everything using home supplementation and tutors, education will suffer more, the entire educational system is failing miserably and everyone like how do we get more people to become teachers? Seriously? You can’t keep the ones you had, why ever would more want to work for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s only so much money to go around, and the elementary school and english teachers are scared that STEM and SPED positions will get most of the raises if they separate pay scales by area.

Maryland law prohibits teacher’s unions from organizing a strike. If you don’t like the job, then find a new job, just like any other professional would do.

If you look at the jobs openings for mcps there are more open positions for classroom teachers than sped. Sped is harder to fill because of the certification requirements but overall there are fewer open spots. There are only a handful of science teacher openings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a Maryland state law that makes strikes illegal due to the disruption is would cause.

The unions help negotiate salary, benefits and work conditions as well as making sure admin follows the rules including when trying to get rid of a bad teacher. Oftentimes admin screws up the process or doesn’t really want to deal with the process so they end up keeping the teacher instead.

So instead they all just quit? Sounds like a crappy law.

Quitting is far better than striking. For everyone.

Tell that to the kids without IEPs being fulfilled, or kids being herded like cattle from room to room because they have no singular teacher, or the teachers that are still there doing twice the work ready to quit too. Sounds great!

And what happens to those kids during a strike? Think their IEPs are being fulfilled them?