Those with master’s degrees in the state started off at $57,845 for the same year.Īt the charter school’s October board of trustees meeting, teachers continued to raise concerns about wages for certified and uncertified teachers and compensation for additional work. The national average starting teacher salary for the 2020-21 school year was $41,770 and in the Garden State, the average bumped up to $54,053. New Jersey maintains the highest average starting teacher salary among the 50 states, according to the National Education Association, Nine of every 10 New Jersey school districts pay a starting salary of at least $50,000. Great Oaks Legacy did not provide details on who participated in the survey or pay data collected from the study. The study “did not find any gaps in pay based on total years of experience and there were no indicators of racial inequities,” according to the charter school. In addition to the newly launched pay study, the charter school completed a multi-year analysis of salaries for a group of “network academic leaders” in July, according to Great Oaks Legacy. Staff that spoke out about wages asked board members to release a pay scale and salary information for certified and uncertified teachers but the charter school has yet to do so. Juli-Anne Benjamin, Great Oaks director of curriculum instruction for K-8 grade, raised concerns over pay inequity with her salary when compared to her predecessors and others serving in her role. Some administrators such as Lisa Powell, chief academic officer for elementary schools, said they had been emailing the board about inequity issues over the last five years. We gladly welcome feedback and view it as critical to our shared success, and we are actively addressing all of the issues that were presented at the board meeting both with individual teachers and with all of our colleagues.”Īt the beginning of the school year, several members of the charter school community packed a third-floor classroom at Downtown Elementary School to unleash frustrations regarding pay, personnel issues, and other concerns that some said had been building for years. “We always encourage our teachers, students, and families to share concerns about the things that matter to them. We were proud this year to provide raises and additional stipends to all of our valued colleagues,” John Eddy from Goldin Solutions and spokesperson for Great Oaks Legacy said in a statement to Chalkbeat. “Great Oaks Legacy Charter School believes that equity is essential. Now the Newark-based charter school network said it has resumed a schoolwide analysis of pay equity within the organization, as well as a comparison to other local charter networks and district schools, that will help “refine its compensation philosophy.” The first phase of the study will be finalized in April by EdFuel, an independent nonprofit that has worked with schools around the country to conduct similar studies, the charter school said.Īccording to an email from the charter school’s public relations firm, Goldin Solutions, the charter school “originally planned to launch the study earlier this year but had to put it on hold due to leadership changes in the HR team.” Since May, teachers and administrators at Great Oaks Legacy Charter School have been asking leadership for transparency about employee salary information following their claims of wage inequities among colleagues.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |