Days of Future Past

     Nothing infuriates me more than sitting across from the superintendent in a bargaining session and have him claim that he understands the financial struggles of a first year teacher.  This from a guy whose salary alone is over three times that of that kid just out of college.  Of course, the school board is every bit as insulting when they start chirping about how much they appreciate what we do.
    At any rate, I'm not going to say anymore.  Discretion is the better part of valor, and I think the table below says everything that needs to be said about how sympathetic the superintendent and school board really are when it comes to our young staff members. (MPS is the only local district other than OPS that hasn't seen some improvement in this time frame.  Remember that they agreed to a freeze prior to the district going into deficit, and then suffered cuts to address the deficit.)

Salary for a new hire in 2010-11			Salary for the same hire in 2014-15
Orchard View	$41,095		Reeths-Puffer	$44,232
Ravenna	$38,612		North Muskegon	$43,986
Reeths-Puffer	$38,546		Montague	$43,680
Oakridge	$38,133		Whitehall	$42,500
Mona Shores	$37,872		Orchard View	$42,295
Fruitport	$37,789		Ravenna	$42,138
Whitehall	$37,707		Mona Shores	$40,978
Muskegon City	$36,926		Fruitport	$39,678
North Muskegon	$36,687		Oakridge	$38,133
Montague	$36,441		Holton	$37,821
Holton	$33,988		Muskegon City	$36,187