Fighting for Our Teachers, Our Schools and Our Community

The Reading Teachers Association released a statement on their website regarding contract talks with the town:

“Providing teachers with a decent middle-class living commensurate with other professionals with similar education is not simply a matter of fairness. Effective teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student educational performance.” — Economic Policy Institute

The members of the Reading Teachers Association are united in search of a contract that supports the mission of public education. We are also committed to signing a contract that respects our professionalism, our expertise and our years of teaching experience.

Respect. Reading teachers and the Reading School Committee have been in negotiations for a new contract since April. In August, the School Committee made its “last, best” offer to teachers. In response, Reading teachers realized that they would not be able to achieve a fair contract that fulfilled the school committee's promise to attract and retain staff and voted by a ratio of 5 to 1 to pursue mediation.

Equity. In Massachusetts, teachers are paid 21.3 percent less than other college graduates across the state. In Reading, teachers make even less. The average teacher salary here is $8,556 less than the average teacher salary across the state. But in Reading, teachers also work more days, attend more after-school meetings (about 30 per year in Reading versus 10-20 in comparable districts) and pay more for health care benefits than teachers in similar communities (the employer-employee split is about 70/30 in Reading versus 80/20 across the state). It is easy to see why our town struggles to retain experienced teachers when they can move to a neighboring district and get an immediate raise in salary, have the employer pay a larger percentage of insurance benefits, and be required to attend fewer after-school meetings.

Commitment. Reading has some of the best and most hard-working teachers in the state. Our residents affirmed this — as well as their vision for their children’s schools — last year when the “Yes for Reading” Proposition 2½ override campaign succeeded. The Reading Teachers Association was an important partner in this effort. Now it is me for Reading to show its commitment to its teachers.

Reading needs to become more comparable in salary, working conditions and benefits in order to be able to retain and attract quality teachers and administrators. This is not a want. It is an urgent need. We cannot continue to watch as our respected colleagues leave for other districts, and we do not want to see the quality of public education in Reading jeopardized.

If you care about the future of Reading, please fight for Reading teachers.