District wants up to 13% salary cut, other big changes
Complete coverage of the Philadelphia School District by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Kristen Graham.
District wants up to 13% salary cut, other big changes
Kristen Graham
It's going to be a long summer.
The Philadelphia School District wants its teachers to lengthen their workdays, give back up to 13 perent of their salaries, and forego pay raises at least until 2017. It wants to reduce the money paid out to departing employees, weaken seniority and give principals full authority over hiring and firing teachers.
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers officials on Tuesday confirmed some details of the district’s initial contract proposal, which the Inquirer has obtained. School officials have been saying for months that they need up to $180 million in labor givebacks annually to avert a five-year deficit of more than $1 billion.
The teachers' contract expires in August.
“These are not demands that my members would support, nor would they ratify them,” Jordan said in an interview. “And these demands clearly indicate that the district does not have an interest in attracting and retaining teachers.
Teachers who have experience will certainly leave to go to other districts, where they will be compensated fairly for what they do.”
Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn said he could not comment on ongoing labor talks, but said that the school system “actually values teachers as the most important resource in our district. We are committed to providing teachers with a set of working conditions…that will actually in the long run make Philadelphia a place that people will want to come and work.”
Under the district’s opening proposal, issued Friday, the PFT’s 15,000 members — 10,000 teachers, plus nurses, counselors, secretaries, aides and others — would take pay cuts ranging from 5 percent for those who make under $25,000 to 13 percent for those who make over $55,000.
On top of the smaller paychecks, employees would also have longer workdays. Teachers, whose current official workday is just over seven hours, would be required to be at work for eight hours.
The district is also seeking massive changes to how teachers are assigned and to the strict rules that govern the work they’re asked to perform outside of their regular classroom duties. Seniority now determines how many teachers get jobs; under the district’s new proposal, principals would have the authority to hire and move teachers. (Teachers would still be eligible for due process in firings.)
Principals would also be able to assign teachers to tasks like hall monitoring and lunch duty at will. Currently, teachers’ time is carefully governed by union rules.
Now, the top-paid tier of educators are considered “senior career teachers” — those with 10 years of experience or more, plus other qualifications. That category would disappear. (A senior career teacher makes about $90,000.)
Instead of being paid at their daily rate for unused personal leave, employees who retire or leave for another job would earn a flat $160 per day.
And the district would retain the right to outsource any job.
When he first heard the district’s demands, PFT President Jerry Jordan, said he was incredulous.
“I thought it was a joke,” Jordan said.
His members’ household bills have been getting bigger, and they are already earning less and working in more challenging circumstances than their counterparts in suburban districts, he said.
Jordan also scorned the attempt to give principals more say in assigning teachers. “Another example of the district’s overall plan to command and control teachers and other employees — you see nothing that addresses teaching and learning and making schools better for kids.”
Kihn said the district’s aim was actually to treat teachers as professionals, and to “make sure that we have the right teachers with the right sets of students, and make sure that we’re rewarding and retaining our most effective teachers.”
Though the contract is important, “we are overall and in parallel working on a set of initiatives to try to improve the quality of teachers’ experiences,” Kihn said.
Kihn stressed that the fiscal situation is grim, and pointed to concessions by other unions and pay cuts recently taken by non-unionized employees. Those cuts, however, were less than what the district is asking from the PFT.
“This is an incredibly challenging set of circumstances,” Kihn said. The financial part of the district’s request “should come as no surprise.”
Talks are in the earliest stages. But the demands are huge, and could spur a flurry of retirements and departures from the PFT’s ranks.
That’s crucial to a system preparing to close 29 schools and hand three more over to charters. District officials have said they don’t believe they’ll need to lay off teachers — though other employees will be let go — and high numbers of retirements and other departures are key to that calculus.
Wait until Gendres gets a load of this....— Wiseman6- Philly should wait to see the reaction of the parents who care and who have the salary and the means to move from the city hear this!
There won't much much growth left in the city when all the good teachers are gone!
I have a child at a public school and I am very happy with his teachers.
Mr. Hite's proposal would have had more conviction and persuasion if he had NOT already given OBSCENE raise to a number of central administration personnel (some of whom were reportedly incompetents maybe ready to retire) and had not hired a new controller with a questionable ETHICS with a high salary!
If this were a sacrifice, it should have been shared.
How about this Mr. Hite himself MATCHES whatever cuts in salary and benefits and others he is proposing for the teachers. 13% salary cut to start with or may be 15% since he has a much higher salary than the teachers????????
I do not want to lose the good teachers to the suburbs!!!!— EIK - This comment has been deleted.— bil,l atkin,s
- bill
you are consistent.— the lopez! - Hey Bil? WORK! Try it once in your lifetime and see how it feels. — Kolitz
- The only thing missing from this contract offer is that the School District cannot send anyone over to the teachers house to spit on their family.— Thelonius Monk
- 13% pay cut? Didn't the big wigs in the administration just give themselves raises a couple months ago? Doesn't seem equitable to me.
And will Dr. Hite be taking a 13% cut from his $300,000 salary?— 57xl - he wouldnt miss that not one bit after taxes. Not even relevant — Lyrra
- Share the pain of the private sector.— TetVet
- What private sector employer ever asked it's employees to take a 13% across the board pay cut? Moron! — Kolitz
- So will the administrators take a similar pay cut including the new superintendant who signed a contract that pays him $300,000 (not counting his perks) or the 25 administrators that received raises last year?— catnameddomino
- Ha, good luck with this one! Never happen, but good starting point for bargaining.— dogman5
- so we always use the metaphor of the people on the front lines to describe teachers, yet the people who do NONE of the educating of students keep getting paid as they hide in their offices.— high water
- Great start for the school district. Don't let up.— BillMcG
- You could not pay me to work in some Philadelphia school districts. They are more like zoos than schools.— Wednesday
During the school year, you’ll frequently find her hosting live chats about the district on Philly.com. Please do pass along the scoop about what’s going on at your Philadelphia public school; Kristen welcomes tips, story ideas and witty banter at kgraham@phillynews.com or 215-854-5146.
You can also follow Kristen on Twitter here.
