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Palm Beach County, Fla., Teachers at Low-Performing Schools May Get Pay Raise

Posted on: Friday, 24 February 2006, 18:00 CST

By Scott Travis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Feb. 24--Palm Beach County's lowest performing schools could be home to the highest paid teachers next year.

The school district and the Classroom Teachers Association have reached a tentative agreement to pay teachers at six high-needs schools an extra 20 percent supplement. So teachers normally making $50,000 would be paid $60,000 if they agree to work at one of the identified schools.

The $4.3 million plan, part of a union contract that teachers will vote on next month, could mean a longer school day and a longer school year for students. District officials haven't worked out details but said the idea is based on a program in Miami-Dade County called "the school improvement zone." There, students and teachers attend school for an extra hour a day and 10 days a year. Teachers also spend an extra 56 hours in after-school training.

Johnson said he has identified the six schools but wouldn't release the names, saying they could change and that he didn't want any announcement to disrupt focus on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which begins Monday. But he said all are D- or F-rated, making the pool of eligible schools small.

Candidates include Pleasant City Elementary in West Palm Beach, Lincoln Elementary in Riviera Beach, John F. Kennedy Middle in Riviera Beach, Lake Shore Middle in Belle Glade, Boynton Beach High School and Gold Coast School in West Palm Beach. All are D-rated except Gold Coast, an F-rated alternative school. Johnson said one of the six will be an alternative school.

Administrators at most of the schools say they haven't been told whether they will be one of the schools selected.

"I'm a hopeful participant," said Andrea Peppers, principal at Pleasant City. "I think it will provide some stability, consistency and assurance that the highest qualified teachers are placed in the schools that need the most help."

District officials hope the plan will draw interest from top teachers. Those now at the six schools will be allowed to stay if they are willing to do the extra work, or they can transfer to another school, Johnson said. During past efforts to restructure schools, Johnson has made teachers reapply for their jobs, but Classroom Teachers Association President Theo Harris said the union wouldn't support that.

For years, the district has been looking for ways to place high-quality teachers in low-performing schools, and the results have been mixed. In 2002, Pine Grove Elementary in Delray Beach used money once reserved for an arts magnet program to pay teachers $7,000 extra per year. The following year, the school earned its first A grade.

But when Johnson offered some of the district's top teachers a $10,000 bonus in 2002 and 2003 to switch to a low-performing school, he got few takers.

Katie Giradeau, a teacher at A-rated Addison Mizner Elementary in Boca Raton, was one of the teachers who declined the offer. She said she's not interested in this latest plan either.

"I couldn't be at a better school," she said. "There are a lot of things you have to deal with at lower-performing schools. There are more discipline problems."

She said she also rejects any suggestion that the quality of teaching is the reason children at D- and F-rated schools aren't succeeding. She said it has more to do with poverty and other factors in a child's home life.

While the bonus plan didn't work well, Johnson said this plan has a good chance at success because the teachers' union helped draft it. But the key was always coming up with enough of a bonus to entice top performing educators to work longer hours at struggling campuses.

Education Writer Marc Freeman contributed to this report.

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Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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