Washington school districts have the money for educator pay raises

[TexasTowelie]

School administrators who say they can’t afford to give educators substantial pay raises aren’t telling the truth.

They have the money.

As one Republican state senator noted this week, school districts are benefiting from “… historic increases in funding by the Washington State Legislature…” Because of the Washington Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, districts are receiving $2 billion in state funding for educator salaries in the 2018-19 school year.

(Despite what some administrators are claiming, districts will see a net increase in funding, even after local levy reductions.)

Pay raises must be negotiated locally, of course. Responsible school boards in more than 30 districts have worked with their local unions to negotiate double-digit percentage pay raises for teachers and support staff. Read the pay raise map.

Read more: https://www.washingtonea.org/ourvoice/post/budget-faq/

[angrychair]

1. Where I live the school board is openingly hostile

The teachers will likely go on strike. The school board refuses to budge despite proof they are twisting the numbers to imply they cannot give a raise

[BigmanPigman]

2. Yesterday I mentioned this to someone.

at the protest I attended I spoke with some other resisters who were teachers too. We agreed that teaching is a business and administrators and school boards care about money and not the kids. So many people don't realize this and buy their crap ....."we want what is best for the students". I was a union rep and our district didn't get contracted raises for 5 years while other districts around ours did. Meanwhile they were putting thousands of new books (two years old) into dumpsters. They only bought the books to get some sort of kickback. We called the local news and showed that the books were not "old" as they had said they were. And this was at a site that was adjacent to the School District Headquarters.