SCPS regularly states that it values teachers, but has repeatedly acted against employees' best interests.

This latest agreement doesn't provide a raise, per se. All it really does is restore salaries after last years' SCPS-imposed contract (opposed unanimously by employees) in which employees got no increase.

Regardless, one can bet that there would have been no increase had not the union been on its toes, and fought tooth and nail for it.

Union leadership and its bargaining teams in Seminole County should be commended, along with the rank and file union members who recognize that there is power in numbers. The locals in Seminole County have one of the highest densities of union membership among all districts in the State.

Now, apparently, District adminstrators (as well as all other employees who are not members) owe the union a debt of gratitude, too.

Chris

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Seminole school employees to get raises

The Seminole School Board has approved pay raises for employees, a final step in a bargaining process that started last spring.

The pay hike was tucked deep in a consent agenda at the board's Tuesday evening meeting and got unanimous approval from the board, along with other items under consideration, with not a word of discussion or even acknowledgement that it was happening.

The raises actually came in a couple of separate items. One was approval of recently renegotiated contracts with the district's four employee unions. Workers in the past couple of weeks voted on the contract changes involving pay and a majority decided to accept them.

The other item was to give raises to the district's 377 administrators, including principals, assistant principals, district officials and other administrative personnel, who don't have a union representing them. They will share $362,344, which officials say amounts to a 1.5 percent increase in base pay.

Bus drivers, custodians, lunchroom workers, secretaries and other non-instructional workers will get 1.5 percent average raises, too. Teachers are to get just under 2 percent on average. Overall cost of the raise for those 7,300 employees is just over $5 million.

The raises, which are retroactive to the start of the school district fiscal year July 1, will be included in paychecks coming out toward the end of the month, according to John Reichert, personnel director. The retro makeup pay for the past few months will come a bit later.

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