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Letter to the editor: Summit County Education Association disappointed by allocation of 4A funds

Liz Waddick, DJ Pollert and Tara Dye
Summit County Education Association co-presidents

The Summit County Education Association is disappointed in the Summit School District negotiating team’s decisions regarding the allocation of the funds from the 4A Ballot Measure for the recruitment and retention of quality teachers and staff and enhancing mental health supports. Summit School District, during a five-hour long negotiation session with teachers, refused to budge from its decision to use the “compensation philosophy” of the district in order to allocate this special funding for midyear raises. The use of this “philosophy” will result in a 2% raise for support staff and administration. That means that our staff earning $15 an hour will see a $627 per year raise, while administrative staff earning $120,000 will see $2,400 new dollars this year and in perpetuity.

The teacher team asked the district to be creative with the allocation of this money as it was earmarked for the recruitment and retention of teachers and staff. Teachers at Summit School District do not see recruitment or retention issues at our administrative building in Frisco. They do, however, see understaffed cafeterias, buses, paraprofessional and custodial staff. They also see turnover in their buildings regularly. All of this negatively impacts our students.

Teachers made the choice to overwhelmingly vote no (83%) to their proposed $1,240 raise in solidarity with our support staff. Teachers are hoping that the board of education will take the time to reconsider using the current “compensation philosophy” in order to allocate these ongoing, taxpayer-voted funds while our students wait in long lunch lines and miss field trips because our buses and cafeterias are understaffed. Teachers are also hoping the district will come back to the table to bargain in good faith to answer the question, “How do we equitably allocate the 4A dollars?”


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