Teachers get second-class treatment

Teacher representatives from all 14 schools within our district stormed out of the last school board meeting. Negotiations for teacher salary and welfare benefits have reached an impasse, so the teacher reps delivered nearly 400 handwritten messages from the certificated employees expressing their deep concern that Las Virgenes teachers are the lowest-paid teachers in the area.

The board president, Cindy Iser, read a prepared statement to the teachers in the room that basically said the board was following the directives from the parents that programs came before salary and that no cuts or adjustments would be made to make money available to pay teachers.

Benefiting from the efforts made by CTA, our district received 8 percent in new money this year. The district has offered the teachers what would amount to about a 3.5 percent salary increase this year. This comes at a time when our colleagues in Conejo have already received a 5.5 percent increase, teachers in Simi have already received a 5.5 percent increase and our certificated counterparts in Moorpark received a 6 percent increase this year.

Add to that, our colleagues in all three districts have fully paid medical benefits while more than half the teachers in Las Virgenes must pay out-of-pocket costs for benefits. To complete the picture, our colleagues in all three districts get either fully paid benefits or a stipend upon retirement. Retired teachers in Las Virgenes get nothing, nada, zip for a career of service to the children of this community.

The starting salary for a new teacher in Las Virgenes is $36,344. The starting salary for our new superintendent, Sandra Smyser, was $170,000. The board told us that they started her at a high salary so she could afford to live in the community, but they don't seem too concerned that a starting teacher can barely afford to live. Sandra Pope LVEA co-president Agoura Hills