FORT LAUDERDALE,
FLA., Feb. 8, 2008 –
Pembroke Pines Charter School teachers
overwhelmingly approved a contract tentative
agreement today with the City of Pembroke
Pines that will raise their salaries an
average of 5.6 percent.
BTU President Pat Santeramo said 75 percent
of the Pembroke Pines 300 teachers
participated in today’s contract
ratification, voting 204
to 5 to approve the pay increase, which is
retroactive to the start of the school year.
In addition to the raise which includes
salary schedule step movement teachers
received at the start of the school year,
the agreement decreases the number of steps
teachers must move in order to reach the
schedule’s top salaries.
“We recognize this is just one step toward
making sure the voice of all Pembroke Pines
teachers is heard when it comes to raising
salaries and improving working conditions,”
Santeramo said. “Our work is just beginning
for this historic bargaining unit and its
members. We want our members to know that
the BTU listens to them and takes action on
their concerns.”
Santeramo said the new agreement raises the
teachers’ starting salary from $37,000 to
$38,500. Teachers at the top of the schedule
who previously earned $67,488 will now make
$70,000. The new starting and top salaries
match those earned by teachers for Broward
Public Schools.
The starting and top salaries are also among
the highest in Florida. However, according
to the National Education Association, the
state remains 29th in the nation for teacher
pay.
The agreement establishes a new trend in
South Florida teacher contract negotiating.
Public school instructional staff salaries
average about $44,000 per year or about
$5,000 less than those offered teachers in
the neighboring state of Georgia.
Union negotiators have started working to
raise member earning power over the course
of their careers by reducing the number of
years it takes for them to reach the
district’s higher salaries. Traditionally in
school districts across the nation, the
highest salaries are earned by the most
experienced teachers who worked their way to
the top steps of salary schedules. Until
recently, most teachers had to work at least
two and a half decades to reach the top of
most salary schedules.
The Pembroke Pines contract agreement
decreases the number of years teachers must
work to earn the schedule’s higher salaries
from 26 to 20 steps. This means
if members
were on steps 1 through 14 at the start of
the 2007-2008 school year, they will reach
the salary schedule’s highest step 20 and
the schedule’s higher salary two years
sooner. This change will benefit about 240
teachers.
For members who started the 2007-2008 school
year on steps 15 through 21, they will reach
the salary schedule’s highest step 20 and
its higher salary one year sooner. This
change will benefit about 50 teachers.
Santeramo said union representatives have
listened to the concerns of members and over
and again they have voiced their concern
about how long it takes to earn competitive
salaries. While a small number of South
Florida teachers now earn over $70,000 per
year, they had to wait nearly their entire
career to do so. He said in many other
professions requiring a bachelor’s degree,
this amount would be considered a mid-career
salary especially considering the South
Florida cost of living.
Contingent upon the teachers’ anticipated
vote of approval, Pembroke Pines
commissioners voted Wednesday, Feb. 6 to
approve the $500,000 needed to fund to the
agreement. The total cost of teacher
salaries in Pembroke Pines is about $13.3
million.
“Teachers who voted have been extremely
positive and expressed general approval of
the agreement,” Charter school teacher Ron
Simon-Menendez said. “We even had five
teachers vote and join the union at the same
time.”
The contract agreement remains in effect
until July 1, 2010. Union and city
representatives will re-open salary
negotiations again in May to determine the
teacher’s salary increase for the 2008-2009
school year.
The Broward Teachers Union created its
Charter School Professionals Unit just over
a year ago when the charter school teachers
became the first in Florida to vote to join
a union. Today’s agreement successfully
closes their first round of contract
negotiations. Only half a dozen states in
the nation have unionized charter schools.
The City of Pembroke Pines Charter Schools
were the first established and operated by a
municipality in the nation.
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Founded in 1969, the Broward Teachers Union
serves more than 13,000 dues paying members
who work for the School Board of Broward
County and City of Pembroke Pines as
education, technical support and charter
school professionals. It is the second
largest local teachers union in the state
and the sixth largest in the nation.
The union’s affiliates include the Florida
Education Association, the American
Federation of Teachers, the National
Education Association and the AFL-CIO.
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