The Ithaca Teachers Association has been negotiating contracts with the district since December, and union representatives were not alone when they arrived for that first day of negotiations. On December 20 both students and teachers rallied behind the school, cheering on the negotiating team with the hope that this year’s contract would bring a much needed raise to Ithaca’s teachers. Pay is low for teachers in Ithaca, less than in some surrounding districts, while Ithaca’s costs of living remain sky high. Salaries for ICSD’s teachers are simply not competitive, and that needs to change.
Ithaca is an expensive place to live. According to the Ithaca Journal, the average cost to buy a house in our school district was approximately $275,000 in 2017, a significant increase from just $120,000 twenty years ago. In a district where costs of living have grown so high, it would make sense to also pay high salaries to the teachers the district employs. However, teacher salaries in ICSD are not even the highest in Tompkins County: Trumansburg CSD’s median teacher salary of $54,315 is a step above ICSD’s $53,319, and Lansing CSD surpasses both, with a median teacher salary of $62,389. The sad truth is that an ICSD salary is rarely enough to afford living in Ithaca, and to work in ICSD many teachers must live outside of the city and endure long commutes every day.
The median salary for ICSD teachers is lower than the national median, administrator salaries higher in ICSD than they are nationally. Last year’s median salary of the principals of ICSD’s twelve schools was $112,875, over $18,000 more than the national median for school principals in 2017, the latest year for which data is available. Additionally, the number of district administrative positions is growing, with positions such as Director of Special Projects and District Inclusion Officer having been created over the previous few years. Salary-wise, ICSD is a good place to be an administrator, but the same cannot be said for teachers.
The district manages to spend generously on some priorities, while teachers remain secondary, receiving salaries that are far too low given the costs of living in Ithaca. Teachers do important service to students and entire communities, and often do work to help their students outside of just the school hours for which they are paid. Some advise and coordinate extracurricular activities for students, contributing to the growth of the school community, but the compensation for doing so is only around $200. Despite all of the time commitments of being a teacher, both during and after the school day, Ithaca’s teachers often have to take on additional jobs in order to support themselves, not just in the summer but sometimes during the school year as well. Anyone who goes into teaching—a profession that requires both a master’s degree and a genuine interest in supporting students—should not need to work multiple jobs. Teachers around the district often go above and beyond to perform public service, and they are owed recognition for their efforts.
As the school board negotiates salaries with the teachers association and tries to plan budgets for upcoming years, supporting the district’s teachers should be more of a priority. Ithaca has a reputation for valuing education, but the salaries for its teachers don’t reflect that. At the end of the day, the ICSD’s mission is to educate, a task that is carried out by the teachers themselves. Paying those teachers less than they deserve hurts the entire ICSD community.