Chelsea Archie never considered the pay when she signed her first contract to become a teacher at Broken Arrow Public Schools five years ago. But after she and her husband started a family and began to feel the strain on their two teaching incomes, she did a little homework and was shocked by what she found.
“I had just accepted the compensation that was given,” said Archie, who teaches middle school science. “I was living near midtown Tulsa and I was driving south to Broken Arrow. When I started shopping around, I found out if all I did was turn north and go to Owasso, I would make almost another $3,000. That was a pretty big factor for me.”
Even after Oklahoma passed a minimum $5,000, statewide teacher raise this year, a Tulsa World analysis of starting, regular compensation in 18 area school districts found a nearly $4,100 gap between the highest-paying Owasso, where Archie now works, and three that pay only the minimum $36,601 set by state lawmakers — Collinsville, Keystone and Liberty.
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Rounding out the top five are Bixby, Jenks, Bartlesville and Sapulpa.
‘A loophole in the law’
Competition for teacher applicants has never been higher because of a statewide shortage, but this kind of comparison shopping is no simple task.
“It can be a little intimidating,” said Archie. “Some districts don’t offer that much information. It’s important for new teachers to be able to find this information and make the right choice for their family or for themselves.”
Many districts publish pay scales, called teacher salary schedules, that don’t specify whether any of the teacher’s mandatory 7 percent contribution to the state’s teacher retirement fund will be met by the district or deducted in full from the teacher’s salary.
According to the Oklahoma Education Association, it has become customary in the Oklahoma City metro for school districts to cover the teacher’s full 7 percent retirement contribution in addition to a salary well above the state minimum.
But the World found only a couple of districts — Bartlesville and Bixby — in the Tulsa area doing so. Others pay lesser amounts, such as $388 in Sapulpa, and a flat $1,400 in Glenpool and $2,000 in Owasso. Districts including Sand Springs, Tulsa and Union don’t cover a dime of that expense.
Complicating matters further is the fact that some districts take advantage of what one outgoing lawmaker set to join Gov.-elect Kevin Stitt’s administration calls a “terrible practice” that needs to be ended.
“There’s a loophole in the law that says as long as the district pays you a salary plus any portion of your retirement and that equals the minimum salary, it’s OK. I was shocked that’s even possible,” said Michael Rogers, who has been tapped to be the new secretary of state.
What this means, practically, is that districts such as Broken Arrow, Claremore and Sperry can start teachers out with salaries only in the $34,000 to $35,000 range — well below the state’s new minimum of $36,601 — but still qualify as having met the state’s requirement by counting some or all of the monies they are directing toward the teacher’s mandatory retirement contribution.
Rogers served as common education committee chairman during his four years representing Broken Arrow in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. That district, the state’s sixth largest, posted the lowest base salary of any area district, at $34,903, and pays $2,637 for the teacher’s mandatory retirement contribution.
After a teacher constituent approached him about how she had unwittingly taken a $1,400 pay cut when she left another district for Broken Arrow Public Schools, Rogers created legislation to try to improve transparency for teachers in the job market.
House Bill 1622, which took effect in November 2017, imposed a new requirement for districts to notify teachers whose salaries would be less than the state’s minimums if not for the district counting the payment of teacher retirement benefits.
Rogers said he received push-back from public education advocacy groups about teacher compensation being a matter of local control, but he still doesn’t think his bill went far enough.
“The amount of school districts doing it isn’t very many, but it really shouldn’t be that way. I think the loophole needs to get removed so there is a clear, solid statement that the minimum salary is the minimum salary, so there’s no gray area,” Rogers said. “The majority of teachers have no idea this could even affect them.”
Talent retention ‘has our full attention’
Lori Kerns, chief administrative officer at the Broken Arrow district, suggested that a difference in budget priorities is why there is such a marked gap between BA’s teacher salary and others districts’.
“During the last 10 years of significant budget cuts, it has been the priority of Broken Arrow Public Schools to maintain small class sizes and not reduce (Advanced Placement) or honors course offerings available to students. We believe the combination of these two priorities has the most direct impact on student learning. Now that the financial outlook is brighter, the board of education has placed teacher pay as our top priority,” Kerns said.
BA was one of a handful of districts across the area to note that they’ve made some attempts to bolster teachers with one-time bonuses, as opposed to salary or benefit increases that become permanent obligations. In BA this year, the district did add $300 to each step of the district’s pay scale, plus used one-time money to give teachers a 3 percent stipend “to help bridge the gap between the BAPS pay scale and any surrounding area scale.”
“We are fully committed to addressing further gaps directly in the 2019-20 teacher salary schedule,” Kerns added. “Broken Arrow is fortunate to have some of the best teachers in the state, and the retention of that level of talent has our full attention.”
‘A complicated and individual situation’
In districts with teacher bargaining units, teacher leaders can have a big say in how new or additional monies are allocated.
Through conservative budgeting, Union Public Schools was able to come up with a 5.25 percent teacher pay raise on top of the statewide, $5,000 raises for 2018-19. That brought its base salary to the highest in the Tulsa metro — $39,000 — and the closest to the OKC-area leaders, Edmond and Putnam City, which now start teachers out at $40,000.
But while Edmond and Putnam City pay their teachers’ full 7 percent retirement contribution on top of that, Union teachers’ comes straight out of their salaries, leaving them with gross pay of $36,270.
Deena Churchill, an eighth-grade teacher and 11-year president of the Union Classroom Teachers Association, claims responsibility for that.
“My idea has always been to keep it in salary so it has a more positive impact on retirement, which is figured on your three highest-paid years,” Churchill said. “Union has one of the best benefits packages, but many benefits are not quantifiable. Our health insurance is self-funded. The coverages are much better than the state plan and our premiums and co-pays are much less. But that may be a harder recruiting tool because a lot of times you’re recruiting younger teachers who aren’t as concerned about their health.”
Some districts advertise that they cover the full cost of a life insurance policy on their teachers.
Linda Hendrix, advocacy specialist at the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association, said as things currently stand, teachers would be wise to not leave themselves at the mercy of pay scales or recruiters, who may or may not be familiar with what a teacher will actually see in their paycheck.
“It is such a complicated and individual situation. If a teacher is looking at salaries and considering employment or a move, they need to ask the right questions to make sure you’re not making a move that puts you at a lower rate of pay,” she said. “The number doesn’t always represent what you think it represents.”
‘Our business is educating children’
Superintendents in the two highest-paying districts in the area said educators have to carefully weigh class size and course offering concerns for students along with trying to pay teachers the best living wages possible.
“Bixby added the retirement contribution a few years back in exchange for teachers working an extra 30 minutes on Friday. It is a significant (cost) — it’s a couple million dollars. And we remind them, ‘We’re picking up the 7 percent!’ ” Superintendent Rob Miller said with a laugh. “But we want to be competitive. We want to recruit the best and brightest teachers.”
Owasso Superintendent Amy Fichtner said Owasso may well have the highest total compensation and gross teacher pay in the area because other districts chose to maintain lower class sizes.
And she makes no apologies about how the district’s pay scale rates.
“Our business is educating children — I have to wear a business hat. I have to analyze all of our benefits, all of our pay scales. Why would a teacher, a bus driver, a mechanic, a secretary want to come to Owasso Public Schools?” she said. “We’ve said for years we can’t be competitive, we’re public education or we’re this or that. I think our teacher shortage is evidence of us not being competitive for years.”
Owasso’s approach to recruiting and retaining teachers isn’t just about compensation. It’s also about respect from principals and from district leaders who are transparent about finances and listen to teacher input.
“Teachers seek a place where they can be treated as a professional, where they have a framework to use, but still autonomy. It can’t be a central office culture that is imposed. We added tuition reimbursement and employee assistance this year based on feedback. They know how much we spend on tires!” said Fichtner. “Each district has to make its choices based on the culture and the priorities it has. Every person in Owasso Public Schools knows what we value — there is deep respect for teachers.”
