Teacher Salaries Don’t Add Up

Florida ranks worst in the nation for educators’ pay. How do they make ends meet?

You don’t have to be good at math to be alarmed by these numbers:

• The approximate number of public school teachers in the Sunshine State: 180,000.

• The number of students in Florida public schools: 3 million.

• The salaries households with one adult and one child or two adults with two children must earn to support themselves — with few or no extravagances — while working full-time in Florida: $77,515 or $104,524, according to the M.I.T Living Wage Calculator ( livingwage.mit.edu/states/12 ), which does a detailed assessment of living costs for every state.

• The average annual salary of teachers in Florida: $53,098.

• The state’s current position among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for average salary: 50. (Only West Virginia pays its teachers less, on average, in the recent ranking of the National Education Association.)

Those numbers pose a troubling equation — and paint an uninviting picture of the economic lives of many teachers in Florida, where one of the two worst rankings for teacher pay is matched by two other depressing numbers: $12,488 and 48.

Student note to Virginia Grace Sisk. VIRGINIA GRACE SISK / COURTESY PHOTO

Florida is 48th in spending on students, per person, at $12,488 — behind Georgia’s $14,083 or New York’s $30,867, for example. As the 2023-24 school year draws to a close this week after joyous graduation ceremonies popped like fireworks in every community across the state last week, Victoria Durrance was going to work in her second job at Glory Days Grill in Lecanto, an unincorporated community in Citrus County.

Teaching 11th and 12th grade English and Theory of Knowledge to 141 students in the spring semester at Lecanto High School, Durrance knew she would take up the teaching from her teenage years on, thrilled then and now by a hyper passion to fulfill her calling.

She began in January 2021, after graduating from the University of South Florida, with a starting salary in the mid-$40,000s — considered competitive by the governor and Legislature, part of an effort to lure more young people into the profession during a dire shortage of teachers.

DURRANCE

But it’s nowhere near enough to move ahead.

The second-job phenomenon

Durrance has added to her income by taking up several other jobs from time to time. Her “little joy” has been serving as marching band director for $300 a month from July through November. She also sells tickets at athletic events and does other piecework — and in recent months, she’s been working as a server at a restaurant.

Three years into full-time teaching, she did something few other young, single teachers do: She bought a house.

Now, she works between 25 and 34 hours a week in the restaurant, rising at 6 a.m. during the school year and often getting home at 11 p.m. from an evening shift, five days a week.

“I was only able to buy the house because Dad and Grandma helped me out (with the down payment),” she explains. “I have a mortgage payment that takes almost one of my two paychecks — we get paid on the 15th and 30th or 31st, so after taxes and health insurance, it’s a little less than $1,500 per check. And if I don’t have any more sick days and I take a day off because I’m sick, it comes out of my pay.”

Victoria Durrance with students Kaylynne Stark and Caleb Rabideaux. COURTESY PHOTO

She says the house, built near Ocala in the 1960s, is livable with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a fenced yard for her dog, but needs a lot of work.

“And I don’t own my car, so I’m still making car payments each month.”

But the teaching. Oh, the teaching.

“It’s so much more than just content,” she says. “The kids know there is someone out there who loves them — not a parent, not a family member. I’m in their corner no matter what. I’ll help solve their problem. I don’t think I could not teach, because I want the kids to know someone is out there who loves them.”

Love or not, it’s hard to do with 30 or more students per class, “and when you have even two kids in that 30 who decide no — who are angry — you might lose (control of) that class.”

SISK

It doesn’t get easier if parents decide to blame her, as they have when she’s covered a class for someone else and a student erupted and cussed her out, forcing her to call their home.

Or when she faces either sickness or family loss, as she has.

It’s like that for all teachers, which is part of the reason the profession in Florida has the unenviable distinction of retaining only about half of those who take up the calling after five years.

“We had teachers quit this year because of the behavior of students or quit because they didn’t feel supported by the administration,” Durrance says.

“I’ve always joked that it’s a weeding out. Not everyone is meant to teach. It’s not a profession for the weak.”

Those who quit may not always be weak, either — but for well-educated young people with enviable communication skills, there are better-paying, more forgiving jobs.

SPAR

When two incomes aren’t enough

Virginia Grace Sisk, married mother of two vibrant girls, will begin her 19th year teaching social studies at Fort Myers High School in Lee County for the same reason Victoria Durrance has been at it for more than three years: she was born to it — inquisitive and smart, articulate, both feisty and witty, someone who loves young people and knows a great deal about her subject and about living.

Sisk points to a note a senior left on her desk last week after graduating high school.

“Mrs. Sisk,” it began, devoid of endearments: “Over the last four years, I have had over 30 classes, but none have stood out like yours. You have a real passion for teaching… the way you can lead a topic or a lesson is unmatched, and your empathy for students shows how you go above and beyond, every day. In my personal (expert) opinion, you are the greatest teacher of all time.

LEWIS

“Thank you for all you do and keep fighting the good fight.

“Hakuna Matata! — Aiden L. (soon to be ESQ.).”

Aiden Lasch wants to be a lawyer someday, she says, “and he would make such a good one.” Hakuna Matata, from the 1994 film “The Lion King,” means “No worries.”

But there have been worries and financial pressure, even though the Sisks are a two-income family.

Almost two decades into her career, Sisk is bringing home $61,000. When she started, she recalls, she earned $37,000 a year. For much of that time, as the Lee School District faced budget challenges during the great recession, teachers could not plan every day.

“So, you teach all day with no planning and a 25-minute lunch break when you have to escort your students to and from the cafeteria if you’re an elementary or middle school teacher. So, in actuality, you’re getting a 15-or 20-minute lunch break. Thankfully, it’s not like that now.”

No, not like that. Like this: Even with her husband a success in his career, to maintain a pleasant home on the riverside of McGregor Boulevard — the main thoroughfare through the nice part of town paralleling the mile-wide Caloosahatchee River — she’s had to work extra jobs all these years. And her family still has to rely on help.

LONGHOFER

“One of the only reasons I live where I live is because my father lives with us. And, ultimately, we can pay our mortgage only because of that.

“There’s been no way to make this work without me taking on supplements, too. I have coached soccer, run student government. Right now, I am co-department head of social studies and I taught seven out of seven, teaching without a planning period to get extra money.”

That was after the recession.

“This year, I’m head of the Honor Society, and I’m a teacher-mentor with the A.P.P.L.E.S. (Accomplished Professional Practices for Lee County Education System) program (to retain beginning teachers), working with younger teachers to help with their questions and needs.”

Oh, is that all?

Well, no.

“I drive Uber and I’ve done Instacart, like other teachers, and I proctor the SAT and ACT tests every time we administer them in school. That can be one to two Saturdays a month. And I always work summers.”

With all that, the Sisks still don’t even come close to the SmartAsset ( www.smartasset.com ) mark for “comfortable” in a family of two working parents and two children.

The uncomfortable cost of living comfortably

According to financial analysts, to reach that comfortable living level in Florida, a family or an individual should follow the 50-30- 20 rule: 50% of a salary should go to housing, food and transportation; 30% to such whims as entertainment or hobbies; and 20% to paying off debt, along with saving money or making investments — the only way to get ahead.

They say that in the Tampa Bay area, a single person with no dependents requires $96,500 per year to live comfortably and not paycheck to paycheck.

The estimate for Port St. Lucie was $91,312, and for Orlando and Miami, just over $100,000.

SmartAsset concludes that the average cost for a family of four in major metropolitan areas to live comfortably is $235,000.

Very few teacher families of four or single teachers get anywhere close to those numbers.

In the long view, things were once better, more comfortable, without the big numbers.

“When I started teaching in 1981, it was a great profession to be in,” remembers Alexandra Bremner, born and raised on the southwest coast in Lee County, where she later taught first and second grade, and then Head Start for the last 23 years of her 35-year career in public schools.

“For the first 20 years, I thought the value and benefits were good. But gradually, things began to change. “

Teachers now have to pay significant sums for medical insurance and for any extra in-service classes that once were free in physics, earth, life and physical sciences, reading, cooperative learning and environmental education.

“For most of my career, I worked 12-hour days. We were paid for nine months of work, which was spread over 12 months.” The interest on a retirement savings plan dropped from 6.9% to just over 1%.

She says, “Many teachers, including myself, think that teachers and teaching are no longer respected. And unfortunately, the ones losing out are the children.”

Why not solve these problems just by paying teachers more?

Salary disparity

That’s really not much harder than it sounds, unlike some complicated things, suggests Jeff McCullers, who holds a doctorate and taught English literature, journalism, drama, stagecraft, humanities, media production and biology for 14 years before serving as a Lee school district administrator for 21 years.

“All salaries for all public employees are policy decisions,” he says. “Salaries are set at precisely the level that the Florida Legislature wants them to be. Could Florida pay teachers more? Yes, of course, and the one and only reason that the Legislature doesn’t pay teachers more is because they don’t want to do it.”

For the most part, those who represent the interests of teachers in county and state education associations — teachers or former teachers themselves — speak with one voice about the difficulties of teachers’ economic lives, the causes of those difficulties, and the solutions to those difficulties.

In short, the governor and the Legislature have not supported teachers simply by creating a minimum starting salary or offering a bonus to beginners — veteran teachers don’t see the bonuses, and all teachers remain far out of range of 50- 30-20 rule living.

To counter that, “We have called on the governor and Legislature to increase funding by $2.5 billion a year for the next seven years so we can pay teachers and staff more, moving them into the top 10 in the country instead of 50th — with more school counselors and psychologists to help with mental health needs,” says Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, based in Tallahassee.

The money, he explains, “would help us focus on academic needs, especially coming out of COVID where Florida students have lagged in academics.”

Although Florida ranks 50th in average annual salaries for teachers, it ranks 16th for starting pay.

Spar says that’s the largest gap in the nation, and the consequences are not good for longtime professionals. It means raises and remuneration are not fairly distributed because districts devote oversized sums to meeting the minimum salary requirement—which officials hope will lead to more hires in the state with the worst teacher shortage.

“But that’s not happening,” says Mr. Spar. “So, under the governor’s own policy, we don’t have an investment in education — we have a shifting of the investment to beginning teacher pay. But people still aren’t coming into the profession fast enough.”

The beginning pay just isn’t enough, says Esmond Lewis, director at the Collier County Teachers Association, even though Collier ranks third in the state for the highest starting pay.

“We should be the highest because we have the highest costs of living,” he says. “Some other school districts like Miami Dade or Broward have passed referendums — a sales tax or something else from citizens like a millage increase — so money is directed to the school board for salaries, and typically administered based on experience.”

But Collier voters, like those in Lee and Charlotte, haven’t done that.

In Collier, “we have the highest home costs in the state,” Lewis explains. “$795,000 is the average home price, with $5,900 per month to rent a home, on average, and $2,400 for an apartment.”

More than 3,100 teachers work with about 48,500 students in Collier. For them, the starting salary is $54,000. The annual average is $69,397, but the mode — the salary value most common in Collier among all teachers — is $54,000, which happens to be the starting salary. If teachers started at lower levels some years ago, they may only be reaching that income level now.

That’s why 30% of Collier’s teachers can’t even live in the county. They commute in from Lee or Hendry counties.

In Palm Beach County, “we are also one of the most expensive to live in,” notes Gordon Longhofer, president of the Palm Beach Classroom Teachers Association, but “the lowest salary is $51,500, with the mean average at $60,602 and the median at just under $57,000.”

Who’s to blame?

“I’m putting this on the back of the Legislature,” Longhofer says.

“With the Legislature’s level of funding being inadequate, districts cannot provide salary increases to teachers that meet increases in the cost of living.”

“It’s morally wrong. It’s reprehensible,” he concludes bluntly.

“At our teacher fest last fall, the two most popular discussion points — especially for single teachers at the fest and new to Palm Beach County — were: ‘Do you need a roommate?’ and ‘Where would you find the side hustle?’”

Lee County’s Kevin Daly, president of the Teachers Association, puts it this way: “Tallahassee can give more money to education. We’re the third largest state in the nation and 42nd in per-student spending. We can shake the school board down for a little more money, but cut to the bone: If there’s not a voters’ referendum (for teacher salary funding), and the state doesn’t intervene, teachers can lose hope.”

When that happens, education has been exiled from the list of “Imperative and Important,” to the list of “Give it lip service, toss ’em a bone and don’t worry about it,” the advocates say.

It’s been that way for a while.

But it doesn’t have to be. ¦

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