Last week, I wrote the first part of a two-part editorial. Here is the second part:
One of my favorite responses from a reader/community member was from a woman who asked what she can do to advocate for the salaries/compensation of our staff. I love this focus.
Additionally, Timothy Barrette’s editorial headlined “Financial Strains Forcing Teachers to Leave Profession” is an excellent read around this topic.
There is so much that each and every person who cares about public education in Manitou Springs and beyond can do when it comes to funding public education. Colorado ranks between 31st-36th in terms of public education spending by state per pupil. This range is based on different sources.
I want to highlight with great emphasis: a huge thank you to our community of voters and the leaders who came before me and advocated for the mill levy override. I can say with complete confidence that had this not happened in 2017, we would be in a completely different funding situation in this post-pandemic time.
Although some might say that people who go into the profession of education don’t do that for money, our staffers still deserve to receive salaries that are aligned to inflation/cost of living.
After all, a child who spends preschool to 12th grade in our school district will spend approximately 16,016 hours or 667 days (24-hour day) of their life in school. This doesn’t even cover the number of hours students participate in performing arts, athletics, visual arts, clubs, tutoring, and other extracurricular activities.
That is a significant portion of a child’s life, especially when they are surrounded by our exceptional MSSD staff.
Twenty years ago, when I started my first teaching position in Louisiana in 2002, my starting salary was $40,000. This is only $3,000 less than a starting teacher in Manitou Springs School District at this time. With the rate of inflation over 20 years, a starting salary should be $63,000 for a first-year teacher.
With our current local, state and national economic realities, I believe tackling Colorado school financing is some of the most important work that we have ahead of us as a local community and society. We actually have a competitive starting teacher salary for our region. Unfortunately, inflation is also increasing beyond what the state is funding at the per-pupil ratio.
I am all-in on this advocacy work, and it really starts with advocating at the state level. We need more rallying support from all stakeholders.
What if (as a community) we addressed the economic disparities that were impacting public educators before the spring of 2020 (pre-pandemic)? This includes creative solutions to local affordable housing, which really might be in our local control.
As an aside, if the November 2021 bond ballot issue had passed, this would have had no adverse impact on educator salaries. In fact, the opposite would be true. We would have had more money to push to salaries versus addressing continuous deferred maintenance.
These funding structures are not the same. We heard the voters and are looking forward to coming back with a better bond package in the future, which is exciting. The district will create a Potential Bond Advisory Committee that will begin in August. More information will be coming later in the summer.
My best hope from our community is that we ask every Manitou Springs School District staff member to stay and that we are fully committed to advocating at the state level for increased per-pupil funding from the Colorado Legislature.
What MSSD is experiencing right now with staff moving on to other life and career pathways is not unique. You can look at every school district in our region and other workforce realities.
However, we can be different in our advocacy, support and creative solutions for all of our educators. Manitou Springs School District is uniquely different and special in this way.
I hope that our smart, driven and caring school district and community can move our advocacy work to this topic. The funding formula in Colorado has been inadequate for decades.
I am fully committed (and always have been) to our educators (at all positions) being paid the salaries they deserve for the important work they do for students, families, each other, the community and the world. This conversation is about educators feeling fully appreciated while also being able to pursue their personal goals.
If you want to fully engage in this topic, we need you now more than ever. Please reach out to me at edomangue@mssd14.org or 719-502-5387.
Editor’s note: If you missed Dr. Domangue’s and Timothy Barrette’s guest editorials in last week’s Bulletin, you can read them in our April 28 Digital Edition.