For past, present, and future educators, it has been a tense time.  A lack of pay, respect, and classroom support has driven many from the profession, and in a 2022 survey, only 37% of folks said that they would want their child to become a teacher.  I cannot confirm that 90% of those surveyed were superintendents.

Now that the horses have left the barn, teacher shortages making national headlines on a daily basis, law makers across the country are finally listening and suddenly want to hug a teacher.  At least on the salary front, teachers are beginning to get more attention from legislators than the Hartford Board of Education gives its bylaws.

While the U.S. Congress debates the politics of, rather than the need for, the American Teacher Act, individually, states are acting.  Since January of 2021, twenty-five states have enacted or proposed legislation to increase teacher pay.

Among these states is Connecticut.  Proposed bill H.B. 6881 is headed toward Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk like a Chinese spy balloon, gathering intel for future legislative battles. Among other things, H.B. 6881 will establish a minimum salary for teachers and paraeducators.  The size of the salary boost that many folks will see is relative to the size of the foot that has been on the neck of educators for years.

Aside from equity issues, the hope is that this bill will bring new teachers gushing through the teacher pipeline like Saudi oil, while also serving to keep teachers in the classroom until they’re old and gray, or at least, nearly old.  Surveys show that more than half of all educators will likely leave the profession long before they get an automatic discount at Dunkin’ Donuts, with 8% of them leaving annually, and 10% leaving after their first year.

The Connecticut Education Association (CEA) called H.B. 6881 “landmark legislation,” that will “go a long way toward addressing Connecticut’s teacher shortage” and “reverse teacher attrition and the shrinking pipeline.” 

Hartford Public Schools presented information during an October 2022 Workshop Meeting showing that despite spending nearly $6 million of COVID relief money on “strategic initiatives to attract, hire, support, and retain high-quality talent,” they began the 2022-23 school year short 92 teachers.  Talk on the street is that on the first day of the school year 2023-24, that number, if it isn’t already, will be much higher as folks are privately saying that they have “had it.”

During a Public Hearing on H.B. 6881 last week, Shellye Davis, President of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators, said that HPS has 70 vacant paraeducator positions and across Connecticut the paraeducator shortage outnumbers that of open teacher positions.

Ms. Davis’ testimony is must-read stuff and was a high point of the Public Meeting, a Public Meeting remarkable for the number of Superintendents and board of education members presenting testimony in support of teachers and this bill…the number was 0, which is only considered a number because you get it by subtracting a number from itself, which means you have a balanced budget.

A study published by the National Education Association in 2022, reveals these facts about teacher salaries:

• The average starting teacher salary for 2020-21 was $41,770, which when adjusted for inflation, is 4% less than it was a year earlier.

• Connecticut is 11th amongst the many states, with a starting salary of $47,477.

• A teacher’s starting salary, when adjusted for inflation, is nearly $1,800 less than what it was in 2009!

• On average, the top of the teacher pay scale is $76,540; a salary level that typically requires a PhD, or 15 to 30 graduate credit hours beyond a master’s degree, and often this is obtained only by teachers with 25-30 years of professional teaching experience!

According to a study referenced by EducationWeek, the average salary for a paraeducator in Connecticut is a non-living wage like $39,000, yet Connecticut ranks 5th highest in the nation. 

In his testimony to the state’s Education Committee, David Case, an East Hartford paraeducator, stated,”… unless we work a second job as I do we would not get paid in the summer and we cannot collect unemployment.”  Mr. Case also stated, “…some of the teacher professional days we have off as no paid days.”

Echoing the insecurity of the position highlighted by Mr. Case’s testimony, Marisol Rodriguez, a paraeducator in Hartford for 27 years, testified that “I am one small paycheck away or one illness away from losing all that I have worked for!” 

Ms. Rodriguez also stated that the paraeducator role has been redefined and reimagined with much more being added to the role, yet the compensation for the position has not kept pace with that change. Yokasty Thomas, a Hartford paraeducator of 17 years, stated, “On occasions we have been called ‘babysitters,’ but it is proven that we are far more than that.”  And far more than that is mandated of them from the state and district leadership.

H.B. 6880 would bring some security to the profession. The bill requires districts to offer the Municipal Employees Health Insurance Plan to paraeducators while also requiring them to pay the employee contribution required under a retirement system for paraeducators.  The state would pick up 50% of this benefit.

The largest benefit of this bill for teachers and paraeducators, however, is the minimum required salary clause:

“The amount paid to each teacher and paraeducator shall be subject to collective bargaining provided each teacher salary is not less than three and one quarter times and each paraeducator salary is not less than three and three quarters times the current federal poverty level for a family of two.”

The current federal poverty level for a family of two is $19,720.  A minimum teacher salary, under this bill, would be that number times 3.25, or $64,090.

A minimum paraeducator salary in Connecticut would become, under this bill, the $19,720 federal poverty level number times 3.75, or $73,950.

Below are the current union contracted pay schedules for Hartford teachers and Hartford paraeducators: