CCSD teachers rally over pay, flood School Board meeting

By Ian Whitaker

Thursday, July 16, 2015 | 6:30 p.m.

Teachers swarmed the Clark County School Board meeting Thursday demanding the school district reverse its decision to sacrifice employee pay increases to help fill a $67 million budget deficit.

It started with a 3 p.m. rally on the sidewalk outside the district’s Flamingo Road offices. Scores of teachers lined the street with signs plucked from the back of a Clark County Education Association van.

One sign read, “Stop the lip service. Show you value teachers.” Another read, “If I wanted to be frozen, I wouldn’t teach in a desert,” a reference to the frozen salaries.

The rally was largely a symbolic gesture, as the school board was not planning to discuss or make a decision on the issue, but union organizers said it achieved its purpose.

“I think they need to see that teachers are upset,” said union President Vikki Courtney.

Negotiations on a new contract have been ongoing since the district announced at the end of June that there would be no salary increases for its 40,000 employees. That was met with swift criticism by teachers, who decried it as a tactic used by the district to taint negotiations in the past.

Cutting the salary increases saves the district around $32 million, but teachers argue it would only drive more educators to quit or retire early. They haven’t shied away from pointing out that CCSD faces a shortage of thousands of teachers each year, and that much of the vacancies come from retirement and resignations.

But the district maintains it received less funding than it did last year, which when combined with inflation, increased operating costs and the loss of a $30 million class size waiver from the state, put it in a tight spot financially.

Union leaders have been unfazed by that argument.

“There’s money in that budget,” Courtney said. “They need to find it.”

After the rally, the teachers poured into the board room, filled the front lobby and packed an overflow room. More than 60 signed up to address the board, but only a handful got the chance.

“It would be worth it if I could support my family doing what I love doing,” said CCSD teacher Kristi Newman. “When you freeze our pay, you’re saying we’re not worth the salaries that we’ve earned.”

Deborah Whitt, chairwoman of the English department at Spring Valley High School, said the district was “in desperate need of progressive change.”

“When the district itself doesn’t want to honor or respect the commitment we as educators are willing to make,” she said. “It becomes more and more difficult to honor this idea of excellence.”

Staci Maxwell a 15-year veteran of CCSD teaching at Hummel Elementary, said she turned down a job at a charter school because they couldn’t give her a competitive salary, only to hear that the district would not be giving her the scheduled raise for her progress in pursuing a master’s degree.

“I was so upset I couldn’t see straight,” she said. “How could a school district publish a salary schedule, recruit teachers by using that salary schedule, and then say ‘never mind.’”

The atmosphere was rowdy at times. When one teacher didn’t get to finish her statement due to time limits, someone in the audience yelled, “If this was important to you guys, teachers would be your No. 1 agenda.”

Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky declined to give any media interviews Thursday but did address the issue later in the meeting.

"This is a challenging time for all of us,” he said to the packed crowd. “I want you all to understand that we will work closely with our employee associations to reach a resolution.”

He also said in a memo released to district employees Thursday morning that if pay increases were negotiated this year, the district might be forced to take the money from school funds, programs and district departments.

It’s not the first time negotiations over compensation have caused confrontations between teachers and district officials. The district said salary increases would be off the table last year also, but employees ended up getting them in the end.

Courtney said they hope to wrap up the negotiations by the beginning of the school year in late August.