OWASSO — State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister on Wednesday said she “regrets” that lawmakers didn’t tackle the issue of teacher compensation before the matter ended up on a ballot initiative she believes is less than ideal.
If State Question 779 fails in a November vote, Hofmeister vowed to continue her fight for a $5,000 across-the-board pay raise for teachers, saying Oklahoma’s “low, uncompetitive” teacher pay is to blame for the state’s deepening teacher shortage and desperate measures like four-day school weeks.
At the Owasso Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon, the very first question posed to Hofmeister was her position on State Question 779, the proposed penny sales tax dedicated to teacher pay raises and other public education needs.
Hofmeister hadn’t been pressed on the issue since before Gov. Mary Fallin’s idea for a special legislative session to take on a pay raise for teachers died.
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“I knew somebody was going to ask me that,” Hofmeister responded to the question from the audience, before noting the presence of a Tulsa World reporter in the room. “I haven’t changed my position — we’ve gotta have a $5,000 pay increase. The 300,000 Oklahoma petition-signers have made their will known. We will now see what happens with the voters when November comes around. If that doesn’t pass, I don’t stop advocating for that (teacher pay raise).”
Of SQ 779, Hofmeister said, “Is that ideal? I don’t think it’s ideal. I think it’s long overdue. And it is with regret that we have not been able to do that sooner.”
The man in the audience pressed again, “You won’t turn down the money?”
Hofmeister responded: “I will not turn down the money. And here’s the other part: It does more than a teacher pay raise when it comes to common education. There is about $48 (million) to $50 million annually when it comes to early childhood. And additional millions for third grade reading and money to fund reforms that have been passed in the past and there’s also some to work on graduation rates. That’s really for Oklahoma voters to decide, but I won’t go away.”
She called on local civic, business and faith-based leaders and parents to support their local schools, but also to insist that local schools don’t make compromises or budget decisions that could undermine student achievement.
Specifically, Hofmiester lamented the fact that school boards in 139 school districts — nearly one-third of Oklahoma’s 515 total — have voted to switch to four-day school weeks.
Since the number of districts with four-day weeks began climbing from the upper 30s, Hofmeister has been blasting the idea as “bad for kids. …We cannot afford to stand still. We have too much to do to lift (student) outcomes and if we stagnate or tread water, over time, we are really going to regress and that’s a travesty,” Hofmeister said.
In particular, Hofmeister has objected to school districts taking advantage of legal flexibility to count school days in minutes because it was intended only to help them make up instructional days lost to inclement weather. In particular, she has questioned the effectiveness of having even young students attend school for much longer days.
When another questioner from the audience asked why, if districts were trying to save money on utilities and other operating costs, they wouldn’t instead elect to have longer school days five days per week and end the school year 20 days earlier.
Hofmeister responded that it is her belief that potential cost-savings, which she described as “marginal,” aren’t really motivating the switch to four-day weeks.
“I think this is really about the teacher shortage,” she said. “The difficulty is with the teacher shortage and (employing) someone with low, uncompetitive pay, it gives teachers a whole day to work that second job. Schools are saying, ‘I don’t want to do it (switch to four-day weeks) but I am losing teachers to another district that’s doing it.’”
Hofmeister suggested that a change could be in order for the state law that allows districts to count their required 180 days of student instruction in minutes.
“I think agricultural laws apply here. You can overwater. Little kids reach a saturation point in the day and then what happens?” she said.
