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NORWALK, Conn. – A newly hired Norwalk teacher with a bachelor's degree will earn more in his or her first year than a teacher in Stamford or Danbury, according to information made available online by ConnCAN, an education advocacy group. But, in some categories, Norwalk teachers make less than in Stamford and Danbury.
ConnCAN recently released an online Teacher Contract Database, which, it says provides "unprecedented access to teachers' contracts from 173 out of 174 local education agencies (LEAs), including traditional public school districts, regional districts, charter schools and the state vocational-technical high school system."
It's the "first time in state history that there is a reliable statewide source for all things contract-related," Patrick Riccards, ConnCAN CEO, wrote to Norwalk resident Lisa Brinton Thomson in an email.
Thomson said she spoke to ConnCAN representatives a few days before the database was made public. "They specifically mentioned to me how Norwalk disproportionally sticks out with respect to its generous salaries and terms and conditions," she said in an email. "This is a credit to the parents and taxpayers of Norwalk and the value that we place on teachers, when one considers that we get virtually none of our ECS (Educational Cost Sharing) Hartford tax dollars returned to the city."
The database shows that Norwalk teachers are paid more than the average teacher in Connecticut, but are comparable to teachers in Stamford and Danbury. In some categories, Norwalk teachers make less.
"One of the things that sticks out about Norwalk is that there are eight salary grades," Thomson said. "The state average is four. So, at least with this database, it is hard to compare apples to apples.
"The question I have is, why does Norwalk need to have double the number of salary grades to the rest of the state?"
Norwalk teachers are required to work one less teaching day per year than those in Danbury and Stamford, the database shows. Their workday length is less than the state average. The elementary school workday length in Norwalk is six hours, 35 minutes, while the state average is seven hours, 12 minutes.
"We know that many, many teachers work much longer days than what is required in their contract," Riccards wrote in his email. "However, when disputes arise or reforms are sought, the contract is a document that guides decisions and work rules and we believe that we must, therefore, look closely at what these contracts stipulate."
"As a member of the DDMT (District Data Management Team), the state-mandated initiative for school districts in need of improvement, there were a lot of complaints by NPS staff that there was not enough time to analyze student data and examine adult actions," Thomson wrote. "I now read that to mean not enough time as per the contract."
"Norwalk teachers start early, stay late and do everything extra that they can possibly do, in a diverse population," said Bruce Mellion, president of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers.
The pay rate of Norwalk teachers was disproportionately low for a long time, Mellion said, and was one pay grade above Bridgeport. The fact that Norwalk now pays better attracts a higher quality of teachers, he said.
"That's how you get the best teachers. You get good teachers because you pay well," he said, adding that higher pay draws more applicants and more competition.
Mellion has told his union members that their benefits are "unparalleled in each category and collectively in the state and the nation," as shown in the document attached below. Also in the document is a comparison of raises received by DPW workers, police and teachers, as well as a list of things the Norwalk Federation of Teachers has done that have benefited Norwalk.
Attached: Various documents regarding the Norwalk teachers' contract (norwalk_teachers_063012.pdf)
Comments (21)
It's funny how some of you claim to have teacher friends and are "in the know" so to speak but you keep talking about how Norwalk teacher pay isn't on par on how our students rank academically. I made the mistake of questioning that to a teacher friend and rightfully got put in my place.
Basically their explanation was along the lines of this: you can take any school in any part of the state or country for that matter and completely swap the teaching staff with a school from a different district. The scores of those schools will not change dramatically. Teachers are just a small part of the equation. In general I'm sure most our teachers are great at their jobs with a few exceptions with any job you will have slackers or those a bit under qualified.
When you consider norwalks academic rankings please also consider who the student body is and who their parents are. Surely you don't expect Norwalk who has a giant amount of students new to the country who barely speak English who's parents work multiple jobs and don't have time to read with them or take them on trips to open up their background knowledge to score as high as a town like Darien who's students come in with lots of background knowledge and are raised by parents who's first language is English and have time to work with them or if they don't have time are replaced by private tutors.
Not to mention those of you who want the schools to do "more with less". Must not have an idea on how important having actual resources in education. You compare to other jobs well ok, which doctor will do a better job healing a deep cut. The one with a few bandaids or the one who has actual stitches? Providing more money to the schools isn't just about saving jobs, it's also about providing our schools with more resources.
Look into other countries that have gotten rid of their military and put all that freed up funding into their education programs. Those are some of the highest scoring students world wide
Anyways My main point is trying to suggest Norwalk teachers are over paid, especially in correlation to the students academic scores is a cheap and not well thought out argument that ignores many important factors.
Think about that with an open mind not a bias towards any points you want to dearly stick by even though they are wrong.
lwitherspoon, point taken. FedUpParent is saying that even with current funding Norwalk schools can not be expected to do a good job for all their students.
No you both missed my point entirely. It had nothing to do with the schools would not be able to do good with their current financial situation.
Are you guys sure you aren't the council members in disguise? You seem to twist words like a politician :)
Again, my point was it is not fair to say Norwalk teachers pay scale is too high in comparison to the academic scores of our children. Because of the numerous parts of the equation that need to be looked at. Its not just the quality of the teachers that determine how well our children would do.
As for putting more money into the schools. I never said that was a small part of the equation. Thats a BIG part. Like anything, with more funding you will get better results. And that doesn't mean teachers should necessarily get paid more. But provide them with more resources and they can do a better job.
You didn't say that money is a small part of the equation, but you did say that "Teachers are just a small part of the equation." The vast majority of money spent by the BoE is spent on teacher and administrator salaries, so if teachers are just a small part of the equation, then money must be too.
Just to be clear, I'm not advocating that teachers consider a wage freeze due to test scores, I'm advocating it because the school system is in difficult financial straits and the taxpayers have already been hit with a tax hike. Separate from that, I do think it's helpful to look at test scores to try and measure performance.
My point wasn't toward any one individual. It's just been expressed by some that teachers in Norwalk are so highly paid yet Norwalk ranks low academically. The way I understand that seems to sound like some are suggesting the teachers are overpaid in correlation to student achievement.
I just wanted to point out that student achievement isn't just based on the skill of our teachers.
As for the pay freeze. I can't speak for all the teachers but most of who I've spoken with said they would be willing for a one year freeze but aren't confident the freeze would only last a year.
I can understand those fears. I wouldn't stay in a position that had no potential for growth.
Your argument seems self-contradictory - one the one hand you claim that schools will do better with more money, but they can't be EXPECTED to do better because money is just a small part of the equation. That said, I agree that it's not reasonable to look at Norwalk test scores next to Westport test scores and presume that Westport teachers are doing a better job. Nobody's talking about doing that, though. You could look at yearly student progress in Norwalk compared to other districts with similar socioeconomic backgrounds, though, or yearly progress relative to the prior year on a student by student basis.
Whatever the case, nobody is talking about substituting band-aids for stitches. What we're talking about is finding a way to pay slightly less for stitches, so that we can have more of them. For example, if the price of stitches is expected to go up 1.35% next year, but we instead agree to hold the price constant, then with the same amount of money we can buy 1.35% more stitches. In other words, MORE resources for the same amount of money - a win for taxpayers and students alike.
My argument is only contradictory when you misquote me. I never said money is a small part of the equation. Quite the opposite. I said more money toward education is an important factor. You twisted that into my point that teachers are a small factor of student success. Those are two separate points that do not contradict each other.
Not sure why the union would agree to reopen te contract. Te point of a multi-year contract for both sides is to lock in the terms and conditions. I am sure if the city experienced a sudden rise in the tax base they would not offer to reopen the contract early to give the union more? In previous contract years when inflation soared and the employees were locked in for years with minimal increases, the management didn't offer to increase wages above their contractual obligation.
The reason would be to prevent job losses for fellow teachers and administrators. If the Board of Estimate doesn't free up more funds, and teachers insist on getting their raises, there will be teacher job losses. If you had the option of being paid the same next year as you were paid this year and saving 25 of your friends and young colleagues from losing their jobs, would you do it?
I would only do so if they made concessions in another area to make up for the list wages. Otherwise this would become a routine bargaining position.
How does making concessions in one extraordinary situation oblige the Teachers Union to do so again in the future? If anything, the Union's agreement to take a wage freeze now would give the Union the strongest possible justification for refusing to do so again in the future.
Exactly, then why don't you understand that's part of the unions position now? The teachers made concessions by giving up a really awesome health plan. Now they are refusing to do so again.
Thanks withy, you solved that argument!
Anyone who thinks teachers really only work 6.5 hours a day is foolish. There is prep work for daily classes, grading of tests, papers, homework, classwork and the book keeping to go along with that. Many have extra legal duties that take hours as well. I have never know a teacher that works a 40 hour (or less) work week.
In looking at how norwalk stacks up pay wise they are around the same as most of the county. They are above state averages but I would not expect a teacher in Windsor or Goshen to make nearly as much as the cost of living there is not nearly as much. Peopel need to remember that you want people to work ofr towns in fairfield county, you need to pay enough to live in the county. for better or worse, Norwalk is in one of the most expensive counties in the country.
iwitherspoon I think Mellion is a used car salesman or a circus barker. He barks into the megaphone whatever works for him depending on who he is barking at. While I understand his point of view, he acts like such a clown that he made all the teachers look bad. As a result you get articles like this one (which doesn't really say anything but does give us a good comparison tool).
One other thing I noticed is that while Norwalk starts high they have so many steps that other districts teachers end up making more money much sooner into their career. This to me says that many other districts actually make more say over a 10 or 20 year period than Norwalk teachers. I don't understand the need for so many different levels of pay other than to pay less money out over and extended period of time. Seems to me that actually saves Norwalk money and makes Mellion's contract even less appealing than he barks.
I'm well aware from my friends who are teachers that the vast majority of teachers work FAR more than 6.5 hours per day when school is in session. During summer break, winter break, spring break, fall break... that's another story. If you add all the vacation time together, you probably have close to three months a year of paid time off. Yes part of the time off may be spent in professional development courses but many of those lead to higher pay. Also, the bulk of vacation time does not regularly get consumed by those courses.
If all teachers work far more than 6.5 hours per day when school is in session, why does their contract only require 6.5 hours per day of work? I suspect the answer is that a number of teachers are able to get by without doing more than the minimum, and for those teachers the job is quite cushy. For example, how much homework and test grading do gym teachers do?
The "teachers get the summer off" is such an ignorant statement. I suspect you know noting about teaching. Gym is not what you did when you went through it. My kids have tests regarding physical fitness, health and other topics. It's not just playing anymore. Maybe you should look into what a teacher actually does before you make statements like you know. Also, you don't think that "FAR" more evens itself out over the course of the year. Also there is no fall break and they took away our kid's feb. break this year too. I see the parents at PTO meeting and see the kids when I am at the school - there is very little "cushy" about Norwalk schools so far as I can tell.
Why try so hard to justify things? Its all pretty meaningless. When we hire somebody to work on our homes do we look for ways to justify useing the highest priced contractors or do we look for ways to get quality for less money? We need good teachers yes, but we need to be able to afford to live here too. Why pay full time salaries for part time positions? In the private world 40 hours is full time. In municiple jobs 6.5 hours a day is full time? If it only takes 6.5 hours to teach maybe we can let a few custodians go & have the teachers spend an hour and a half cleaning up to complete their day & save some money. I'm just an ignorant high school graduate but find it real easy to see ways we could save money simply by treating city workers like private sector workers. We need to stop acting like money grows on trees or pretty soon there wont be enough taxpayers left to pay the freight.
Thank you for this article Nancy, it's always interesting to see statistics comparing City Government in Norwalk to that in other towns.
The internal documents provided by Teachers Union President Bruce Mellion contradict his own prior statements!
Mellion has proclaimed numerous times at school board meetings and in the press that Norwalk teachers can't consider a wage freeze because they already made a big sacrifice when they changed to a slightly less expensive health insurance plan. Yet at the same time Mr. Mellion is telling his Norwalk Teachers Union members in an internal newsletter that Norwalk's teachers have "medical, dental, vision, and life insurance coverages and benefits that are unparalleled in each category and collectively in the state and nation."
How big a sacrifice was it for the Teachers Union to accept a changed health insurance plan that's "unparalleled" in the state and nation?
Mellion goes on to tell teachers in the same newsletter that "As of this date, the Norwalk teachers’ contract settlement for the period 9/1/10 through 8/31/13 ranks number one in the state.” In other words, Mellion is bragging to his union that he got a GREAT deal for them. Yet out of the other side of his mouth, he says that teachers can't sacrifice because they've already sacrificed enough.
How big a sacrifice was it to accept a contract that Mellion himself bragged was the best in the state at the time, and which STILL makes Norwalk teachers the best paid in the state if you adjust for the fact that their contract requires fewer days and fewer hours?
Releasing that internal newsletter was a major blunder on Bruce Mellion's part. If I were a member of the Teachers Union, I would question whether or not he is effectively representing my interests with such a move.
I noticed it takes 32 years for a Norwalk teacher to maximize their pay while it takes 13 years for teachers in Stamford. This may be a key reason why teachers in Norwalk stay past their prime and after they are burned out.
When you compare teacher salaries to results, where do we rank?
Excellent question Diane.
Norwalk pays the highest teacher salaries in the State then if you add back in the value of working fewer days and fewer hours. And according to their leader, Bruce Mellion, they have the best benefits in the State and the nation. That's saying something.