ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260107
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER|
Mike Reilly draws a straight, diagonal line. Then he draws a line that touches both ends, but sags down in the middle like an archer's bow.
The straight line is where teachers in Montgomery County want their salary levels to be in three years. The sag is where they are now.
Reilly, a math teacher at Christiansburg Middle School, said the gap stems from the lack of a set, incremental pay scale.
Adds Karen Trear, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, "Teachers can't say, 'OK, next year will be my fifth year teaching, and I'll move up to this bracket.' They don't know year to year what's going to happen."
Reilly, a 10-year member of the education association's compensation committee, would like a clearly defined scale that lists step increments per years of experience.
Other teachers agree with him. That way, they say, regardless of how much money is allocated yearly for employee raises, the percentage is clear and equal across the board.
In years past, Reilly said, the increments would change radically depending on the amount of money the administration had to work with.
Reilly said cooperation between staff, administrators and the School Board has improved in the past two years. The three groups work together to come up with one proposal for a salary increase and pay scale.
"But in the 11th hour, it always falls apart," he said. "It's disheartening when we all work together and then we're the first to get cut."
So, this year, the MCEA's top priority is to start using the incremental pay scale.
It won't be easy.
To achieve the straight, diagonal line in three years - the time-line established by the education association - the School Board would have to give a 6 percent pay increase each year.
A bulk of the increase needs to go to the sagging middle, where teachers with 10 to 20 years of experience fall.
That means teachers at the bottom and top - teachers with little or no experience and those with 25 or more years of experience - would receive a smaller pay raise.
Those teachers "will have to bite the bullet for a year or two. But the people in the middle have gotten the short end of the deal for so many years," Reilly said.
Superintendent Herman Bartlett said his main concern in the past has been ensuring that everyone receive a pay increase.
"If you start with the request that everyone's got to get something, and you save part of total [pay increase] to help the dip, then it's a little bit tougher" to find the money, he said.
How Montgomery ranks against other Virginia cities and counties for minimum annual teacher salaries
1994-95 109
1993-94 95
1992-93 81
1991-92 60
1990-91 56
- Virginia Education Association
1995-96 New River Valley schools' minimum annual salary vs. local composite index
Montgomery $22,617 0.352
Radford $25,278 0.328
Floyd $22,000 0.289
Giles $20,670 0.283
Pulaski $24,878 0.279
- Virginia Education Association
(The local composite index, derived from local true values of real estate and public service corporation values, adjusted gross income and local retail sales, is an indicator of a locality's ability to pay for public education.)
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