Op-ed: TRSU-teacher contract talks, mediation fail Union, school board heading to fact-finding.
The Chester Telegraph | May 27, 2025 | Comments 23
Graph 1 compares a retained teacher with 12 years of district experience to a new hire with just two. Even though the retained teacher has more experience within the district and total teaching experience (18 years vs 15 years), the new hire receives an additional $6,400 in pay each year.
By Brett Mastrangelo
Lead Contract Negotiator
Two Rivers Southeast Education Association
Perhaps they advised their class and hosted a great prom. Maybe they wrote a heartfelt letter of recommendation. Maybe they simply acted as the mentor, role model, example or guide your child needed at various times – maybe they were just there for your kid, showing once and again how much they cared about your child’s well-being and success. Unfortunately, if that teacher has worked at any of those buildings for more than three years, then they are being disproportionately underpaid compared to some of their newly hired colleagues.
In Graph 2, the retained teacher has 19 years of district experience and 27 years of total teaching experience. The new hire has three years of district experience and 20 years in total. Despite the retained teacher’s deeper experience and commitment to the district, the new hire receives an extra $11,200 annually.
New hires within the Two Rivers Supervisory Union are being compensated for their experience at a higher rate than veteran teachers who have stayed teaching for the district. In most situations, this results in the newly hired individual making thousands of dollars more than their veteran colleagues. For examples and clarity, review the graphs to the right. Click any one to enlarge.
Through this drawn-out negotiation cycle, the teachers’ union has fiercely advocated to fix this inequality. We believe disproportionate compensation for individuals dedicated to this community is fundamentally wrong.
To be clear, the union is not asking for some unreasonable pile of money for raises, we are merely seeking the same pay for veteran teachers currently offered to our new hires. In fact, the union has developed and presented several workable and affordable options to the board, only to have them dismissed out-of-hand.
Graph 3, has a retained teacher with 16 years of district experience and a new hire with one year of district experience. While the retained teacher has more experience (16 years vs.11 years) the new hire receives an additional $2,000 per year.
Before Thursday’s mediation between the board and the union went into session, the school board took brief public comments from a group of approximately 30 members of the community. The board limited public comments to 10 minutes, during which time neither Superintendent, Layne Millington, nor the board’s attorney, Chris Leopold, faced the members of the public to listen to them speak.
The most recent proposal from the school board offers the teachers’ association 2.65% new money and would not allow that money to be used for correcting teacher salary injustices. However, non-bargaining TRSU employees, including Superintendent Millington, will be receiving a 4% raise for two consecutive years (8% total). Additionally, some principals received up to a 15% raise over two years for an “equal pay” raise so that they would be in line with one another, just as the teachers are asking for – leveling the pay scale between veteran and new teachers. Yet, no one on the school committee, nor the superintendent himself, would acknowledge this. Instead, teachers are being painted as self-serving and overly demanding, while the SU’s administrators benefit in exactly the manner they are denying the Union.
In Graph 4, two teachers are making the same pay, and yet there is a large gap in their total experience of (25 vs.10) and their district experience (25 vs.1).
The deeper you dig, you find more inequities and inconsistencies. There are examples of employees switching roles or locations within the supervisory union who were immediately granted the experiential steps they were lacking. Additionally, teachers who may have left for a year and returned to the SU have come back making more, simply because they left and returned.
If you agree that veteran teachers deserve to be compensated equally to their newly hired colleagues, please consider supporting teachers by contacting your school board representative(s) and school officials directly and by attending your local monthly board meetings. Additionally, as the association heads into fact-finding, we are raising money to cover fees associated with the process. You can support the association by visiting our reopened fundraiser where we are selling “Equal Pay For Those Who Stay” T-shirts by clicking here.
We hope to have your support and are always willing to meet and discuss our concerns further with any member of the public.
Filed Under: Commentary • Op-ed
I can no longer support my spouse’s employment at CAES. He has been employed at CAES for 17 years and has been a teacher for 24 years. It is clear to me that his pay in no way reflects his years teaching, much less his skill, talent, and dedication. The step freezes have been difficult to cope with financially but the fact that now not only is there no end in sight to the step freezes but also a new hire can be making more than a veteran teacher in this system, is both financially and ethically unacceptable. The union proposal to work toward righting this wrong is such a light ask, the fact that it’s not even being considered is shameful. It’s a multi year proposal which means veteran teachers in the district who have been coping with these freezes for many years will barely reap any benefit, even if the school board/superintendent play ball. The fact that they won’t is truly shameful.
I have been teaching in the district for 8 years and am being paid at the level of 4 years experience.
I have at least 13 years of experience, 7 of which are in the TRSU, and am paid for 8.
I have been teaching 8 years; being paid for 4years experience.
I have been teaching for 16 years in the TRSU, but am getting paid for 10 years of experience.
I have 26 years of experience and get paid at the level of someone with 13 years experience.
I have been teaching in the district for 22 years and I am being paid at the rate of someone with 16 years.
I have been working in the TRSU district for 21 years, and I get paid for 17 years of experience.
I have 8 years of teaching experience and am paid the same as a teacher with 4 years of experience.
I have worked in the district for 15 years. I get paid for 9.
I have 25 years of experience in this district and am being paid for 12.
I have 18 years of teaching experience, but am paid for 13, which is an $8,000 difference.
16 years experience paid for 11 years.
I currently hold eight years of experience, I’m compensated at a level of four.
I am in my 22nd year of teaching (26th if you include time as a professor), and am paid at the level of a 16 year veteran.
I took a 25% paycut to move up here from MA, and have not seen pay increases commensurate with cost-of-living, or fair steps up since.
This is my 9th year working in a school. I am paid at the rate of someone with just 5 years of experience, a difference of $6,400.
I am just ending my 18th year of teaching. I am paid at the rate of a teacher with 11 years of experience. “Equal pay for those who stay.”
I have 14 years of experience, and, like several other GM teachers, stayed in the district through the closure of Black River. I’m currently being paid at the rate of 9 years.
I am in my 20th year of teaching. The district pays me at the rate of a teacher with 10 years of experience.
This is my 6th year of teaching. I am paid at the rate of a 4th year teacher and get $3,200 less than my on-step colleagues.
Comment
The Board and Administration should be embarrassed. The situation regarding teacher salaries that has evolved over the past few years needs to be rectified.
Having served on the negotiations committee for 24 years I can attest to the claims that teachers worked with boards to help with budgets. They have given up steps in the past to help make ends meet. They also were equally involved in helping to boost starting pay salaries so that we could attract high quality staff.
The contract has lost a very important phrase in the past few years (paraphrasing) – no new hire shall be placed on the salary schedule on a step higher than a current employee with the same experience and education. The loss of that language is a travesty. The fact that we are now giving raises of 8% to office staff and 15% to administrators (over two years) and ignoring this gross injustice to teachers who are hands-on with our children everyday is inexcusable.
Teachers, the heart and soul of our schools, who have dedicated themselves to the children of our communities should be respected and valued for their talent and energy working with our youth.
As a former Board member and current taxpayer of Chester I say to the Board: Fix this. Your stance on the issue is, quite simply, wrong.
The district has on file that I have 18 years of teaching experience. I am being paid at the rate of someone with 11 years.
Layne Millington’s history proves that he, by “woke” definition is a committed leader of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion revolution. Like all leaders of this revolution he suffers from a severe case of hypocrisy which is obvious by his willingness to accept an 8 percent pay raise while the educators that he leads take a pay cut. As George Orwell writes in the novel Animal Farm, “All animals are equal but some are more equal that others.” No equity to be found in this situation.
Meanwhile things on the farm we call the TRSU are not going so well. Questions and challenges go unresolved. Why can’t the students read, write, understand math and science at a competent level? What if anything is being done to address the root causes of this situation and why are the taxpayers paying so much money for such poor outcomes?