About 150 teachers attended the Oct. 20 Center Grove Community School Corporation board meeting after the district’s teachers association voted down a contract proposal for the 2022-23 school year.
DAILY JOURNAL FILE PHOTO
Center Grove’s school board unanimously approved teacher contracts Tuesday, but teachers association leaders aren’t satisfied with the agreement.
The contracts for the 2022-23 school year include a 5.65% salary increase for teachers, along with a $500 retention bonus and an insurance holiday for one pay period. The United Teachers Association of Center Grove voted 65-50 to approve the offer last week before it went to the Center Grove Community School Corporation Board of Trustees for ratification.
Teachers association members rejected the same 5.65% salary increase by a 91-16 vote in October, the same month the other five Johnson County school boards approved teacher contracts. The teachers association originally voted against the contracts because the same percentage increase was offered to administrators. Association members argue giving a uniform percentage increase unfairly rewards administrators over teachers because they have higher salaries and, as a result, will have a higher salary increase, said David Lawson, co-president of the association.
If teachers rejected the offer this month, the negotiations would have gone through a process called “fact-finding,” which would give teachers funds that had yet to be allocated. Teachers association members believe school district leaders would have transferred the maximum 15% allowed from the education fund to the operations fund, making less money available for teachers and yielding an even lesser salary increase, Lawson said in an email.
School district officials transferred 13.7% from the education fund to the operations fund for the 2023 budget. In 2019, the Indiana Department of Education required schools to move utilities and custodial salaries to the operations fund, requiring the transfer, spokesperson Stacy Conrad said in an email.
“We were hopeful that the association would accept the offer prior to fact-finding,” she said. “The offer included a stipend for the top row and an insurance holiday. Both would be removed during fact-finding because they are funded from cash balance, which cannot be included.”
The 5.65% salary increase approved with the agreement translates to $3,167 for the median teacher, compared to a $6,667 raise for the median administrator, Lawson said.
While the wage increase raises starting teacher salaries to $46,015 — $46,515 including the retention bonus — teachers at Clark-Pleasant schools now make at least $47,000. At Greenwood schools, the least-paid full-time teacher makes $48,014.
About 150 teachers protested what they believed was an unfair contract offer at the October school board meeting. They also formed the “Support Center Grove Teachers!” Facebook page, which had more than 1,400 members as of Tuesday. Around 60 teachers attended the November school board meeting and jeered when board members voted to approve administrative salary raises, eliciting a reaction from school board member Jack Russell, after which teachers walked out of the board room.
“Just stop! Act like grown people!” Russell shouted toward the crowd. He later apologized for his comments.
“The district needs to prioritize teachers, not administrative salaries and benefits, not facilities and not frivolous spending,” Lawson said. “The Indiana Department of Education reports that Center Grove schools directs only a woeful 41% of state tuition assistance to teacher salaries.”
The 41% figure is less than that of any other Johnson County school district, according to figures from the Indiana Department of Education. Center Grove schools, however, receive less money per student than any other county school district. And unlike three other local school districts — Clark-Pleasant, Edinburgh and Franklin schools — Center Grove voters said “no” to a property tax referendum that would have boosted teacher salaries, Conrad said.
Conrad said the percentage is “not reflective of Center Grove’s innovative instructional approaches that include multiple teachers who do not meet the definition of a ‘full-time’ teacher, as defined by the Indiana Department of Education.” If salaries paid to instructional coaches, school counselors, school social workers, speech-language pathologists, program support, school psychologists and Center Grove’s share of teacher salaries at Central Nine Career Center are considered, that would bring the district’s salary payments up to 53% of tuition assistance, she said.
Many of the positions the district would include in salary calculation don’t spend the majority of their time in Center Grove classrooms.
The teacher’s association drew support and interest from the community with a Facebook group formed to share information about the movement for higher pay. Parents like Nicole Kemp, who has a child at Middle School Central, attended meetings or advocated online for the teachers throughout negotiations.
With both sides failing to agree on a contract for months, parents fear that more Center Grove teachers will likely go to work at other school districts or leave the profession altogether, Kemp said.
During the 2021-22 school year, 50 Center Grove teachers resigned from their positions for non-retirement reasons. If more teachers leave because of the impasse with administrators, it will damage the quality of education at Center Grove schools, she said.
“I’ve been told we are in for a mass exodus,” Kemp said. “We have kids who rely emotionally on seeing the same faces of people they can go to, that they trust.”
