k-5 teachers. annual cost of a class?

[Tri Girl]

$40-50K? Ha ha- that's cute! I've been teaching for 11 years and I only make a base pay of $33K, with benefits it's $36. I'll NEVER make it to 50K even after 25+ years of teaching with a doctorate. Granted, cost of living is less in Oklahoma, but STILL (my DH works for the PO without a degree and he makes twice as much as me).

Here's our state pay scale. My district is one of the highest paid districts and pays slightly higher than this (but not by very much). Notice it maxes out at 25 years- you never make more if you teach more than 25 years. Awesome. I'll max out at $43,900- double awesome. We rank near the bottom of the nation in pay.
http://sde.state.ok.us/Teacher/Salary/default.html

We also rank at the bottom for average spending per student (47th). We spend an average of $7600 (national average is about $10,000).

Art and foreign language instruction is left to me in the classroom with all the free time I have trying to get them ready for all that high stakes testing. My kids go to PE and Music (alternating between the two daily). I'm not certified to teach art or a foreign language- but yet I'm supposed to just pick that up, I suppose.

And our class size is at 26 this year (k-3 is limited to 22). There is state legislation that has passed the House and is moving to the Senate to eliminate class sizes to help with budget constraints. WE COULD HAVE NO CLASS SIZE LIMITS SOON. Insane. 26 is difficult enough- put 30-35 in a class and we will get NOTHING done worthwhile. It's the same bill that is proposing merit based pay based on your students test scores. Insane. I don't mind being accountable,but don't base my pay on how 10 year olds perform on a terribly created test given one week out of the year (especially when I have kids who tell me they don't care about the test and are planning on putting all C's). Grrrrr....

[smilingcat]

Thank you ladies for the links. I will be pouring over the information and try to make one for one comparison to my city.

Hermosa Beach encompasses about 2 square miles with population of around 20,000. Average household is 1.97 or there abouts and only 15% of the household have children...

We have no bussing for the kids. We have two k-5 schools and third is unusable due to asbestos and other environmental concern. That building is rented out to some business.

The district is small, so kids in middle school and high school go to either Redondo Beach or Manhattan Beach school district.

The really unfortunate thing right now for the district is that they can not continue on the current path financially! IT ISN'T SUSTAINABLE!! The budget shorfall 2 years ago was made up by fundraisers (about $300,000), last year that figure ballooned to about ($1,000,000). We are looking the deficit to rise to about ($1,500,000). Last year, the school had requested families to donate upwards of $1,000 per child and many did.

The meeting I attended was requested by both the city council and by the school board in looking ways to mitigate the budget shortfalls or means to adjust the programs so that it is within the allotted budget.

My initial impression was that of aghast at how little of the money went to direct expense, teacher's salary and their compensation. less than 30% of total budget to direct expense. Twice that to support?? WOW!! It just doesn't seem right in my book!

Before I go ballistic over the finances, I wanted to look at what other districts' budget and their breakdown looks like. So thank you for your links.

I'm still really irked by comment about "well we are not multi-national and we are not as sophisticated..." IT'S MY MONEY AND IT'S MY COMMUNITY AND THEY BETTER SPEND IT WISELY!! It's also sad that people with financial background were not there to help out the school district.

[Crankin]

You got a really stupid reply from the school board. These things vary greatly from state to state. Here in MA, the state contributes almost nothing to local districts (well, in comparison to other places). Per pupil cost varies anywhere between 4K and 15K per kid. I could easily see the 175K per class estimate, given salaries (yes, they are higher here. I was making 71K when I quit, with an MA plus 60). The cost of running old buildings with poor environmental systems and everything else that's crumbling adds up.
I don't know the answer to this problem, but I say run for the school board. The kids need people who are concerned, like you!