This is my 14th year in Waukegan. When I started, I made 29,800 dollars. Other districts were paying 35 K to 40 K. I thought, OK. Ill spend a few years here and then move closer to home. Easier said. The economy dropped. Schools downsized. History teachers were a dime a dozen. Still this last year some districts had 350 applications per 1 open position. Then I taught Brandon P Bray Brandon Ewing Sarah Jane Murdock Nikki Tapia Trinity Wright Romeo Torres Michelle Lovato Michelle Ponce de León Juan Garcia-quintero Bobby Barrera Celeste Jefferson Maria Hernandez Jessie Marie Guarin Mariah Gajewski Karen Hernandez and about 2000 other kids. Please forgive me for not posting all your names but you know who you are. I raised over 120,000 dollars to bring students to Washington Dc while making them do community service in the process. Point is, each one of these 2000 plus students connected with me. So I took a pay freeze. I paid for a 18000 dollar plus Masters out of pocket with 2400 reimbursed by the district. I worked 2 jobs to afford the house I live in, which I bought for 145,000 and got only because I served my country. I did it for my family which I was paying over 9000 dollars out of pocket for district family insurance. I had to drop it because the district was going to raise the premium to 1200 a month. Did you know I never cleared a net of a thousand a pay check till this year? Union dues, pension, insurance, taxes, and low pay left me with 24,000 net a year. A highly qualified teacher with a Masters gets 24000 a year, 12000 after a mortgage payment, 8000 after a car payment. So the question comes, after I taught these fine students to be the successful young men and women they have become, and the District has 37 million plus to spend, what am I worth? Havent Ive been the best low cost deal for Waukegan? My students have gone on to Depaul, UIC, NIU, U of I, and even Brown University. Havent I proven my worth? What about my colleagues who have done just as much? Dont they deserve to be paid for what they are worth? We know what Waukegan can afford, and we arent asking for more than is able to be done. So why must we continue to be bad mouthed by our district which we have sacrificed and performed to the fullest ability of our students? We want a fair deal. It needs to be 3 years, and it should have the complete cooperation of the board. Till then...WAUKEGAN STRONG!
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 04:17:38 +0000