Typical teachers close in on six figures

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/05/2015 (3403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So close.

I reported last year that seven teachers in Thompson had become the first classroom teachers in Manitoba to make more than $100,000 a year. They were class 7 teachers with at least 10 years’ experience, the top classification for teachers and which includes teachers with two masters degrees or a PhD.

The teachers in the School District of Mystery Lake are the top-paid in Manitoba, and with their latest four-year deal, typical veteran teachers in Thompson have come very, very close to topping $100,000 in the final year of their new contract.

A Class 5 teacher in Thompson with 10 years’ experience will make $99,435.18 by the time their deal expires June 30, 2018.

I did the calculation myself, based on contract information available on both the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and Manitoba School Boards Association websites.

Of course, every time I mention teachers’ salaries, I get bombarded with emails from teachers accusing me of attacking them.

I have not said anywhere that teachers don’t deserve the money — I have said that this is what they get paid, and that teachers’ wages and benefits are the largest line item by far in school division budgets.

Quick interlude featuring Basil Exposition: there are seven classes on the teacher pay grid, but the first four have only older teachers nearing retirement. Class 5 is a teacher with an undergraduate degree and an education degree, Class 6 is the same teacher who also has her masters. Depending on division, teachers max out on increments by the time they’ve worked nine or 10 years.

Every teacher’s contract in Manitoba expired at the same time on June 30, 2014, and about two-fifths of divisions have new deals, which, like the previous round, are all for the same money. Each deal differs by increment details and by working conditions.

The deals increase teachers’ salaries by 2.0, 2.0, and 2.0 for three years, and most have added a fourth year that has two phased-in 1.5 per cent increases. Compounded, that’s 9.3 per cent by the summer of 2018.

If that rate continues, five or six years from now, pretty much every typical experienced teacher in Manitoba will be over six figures, and the younger ones will know it’s soon waiting for them.

Again, I have not said that teachers do not deserve the money.

However, you may ask yourself, will your wages go up by 9.3 per cent over the next four years, along with improved benefits, and increments if you’ve worked less than a decade?

Also consider that when the province cracked down on public sector workers the last two or three years, the Selinger government left teachers alone. Wonder what the nurses think about that?

Of course, because the Conservatives’ education policy consists largely of “NDP is evil”, we don’t know what Brian Pallister might do if he forms the government. Those contracts combined with a different level of provincial funding could leave trustees choosing between having fewer teachers on the payroll or paying teachers through enormous property tax increases.

That wouldn’t cause any problem at all, eh?