Teachers Deserve Better Salaries

Teachers Deserve Better Salaries

Educators speak out on Alameda’s poorly paid teachers.

Gray Harris: California is experiencing a teacher shortage, which means we need to stay competitive to attract new teachers. We also need to compete in retaining veteran teachers so they don’t leave. The long-term solution is to increase funding from the state. The short-term solution is budget priorities that take steps toward increasing employee compensation. In addition, we are moving forward on projects that will provide lower-cost employee housing.

Christopher Holmes: Educators in Alameda anchor the community. There are staff who’ve been at our school for over 30 years. They’ve seen multiple generations — grandparents, parents, and children. Without competitive salaries, Alameda will lose that tradition.

John Dalton: No significant raises have happened in the last 20 years. We have these stagnating wages but raised costs of health care and housing. We are in a new economic reality. We’re losing teachers to other districts.

Jessica Downs: We offer great professional opportunities, but teachers leave because they can make $10K more in surrounding districts. We hire them, they take our training opportunities, and then they leave. We’re constantly having to retrain new teachers.

Mary Ghiglione-Peterson: Having grown up here and attended Alameda’s public schools, it was always my dream to teach here through retirement, but with each passing year, this dream is more difficult to maintain. We are among the most expensive areas to live in the United States, but our teachers are unable to live in this fantastic community due to the cost of living.

Allison Goldberg: We are the lowest-paid district in the county. We are also a district who prides themselves on their schools. How can we square with that when our teachers can barely afford to live? How do we attract and maintain new talent with these salaries?

Brooke Turner: Educators should be paid more based on the education requirement and the time spent to do a job well. I would assume that the administrators within the district are paid more than the teachers; therefore, their pay should be more along the lines of a teacher’s.