Parents, teachers, alumni and even board members questioned a proposal Thursday that would cap salaries for incoming ASDB teachers at 10 years experience instead of the current 25 years.
While the district is in its third year of a budget deficit, board members ultimately decided to table the vote on the new salary schedule until human resources provides additional reasoning.
An “aye” vote on the changes would have made the maximum salary less than $66,000 for a teacher with a doctorate and 10 or more years of experience.
“We’ve already talked about the problem with recruitment and incentives,” board member Michael Gordon said. “So I can’t understand that as being realistic: to expect to have — not only qualified, but — anyone interested in that.”
Kasey Hopper is an ASDB teacher who asked the board Thursday to put students’ needs at the forefront of district decision making.
“Changing teacher salaries? I don’t understand. I don’t get it. This is our future. If you honestly feel anywhere in your body that this is not right, stand up. Be an inspiration,” he said.
The faltering budget and declining enrollment have already led to a planned relocation of ASDB’s Tucson campus — something many community members are still fighting back on.
Pueblo High School and Morgan Maxwell K-8 named cooperative sites
Parents and staff are still showing concern over the separation of blind and low vision students from their deaf and hard of hearing peers in the Tucson-to-Oro-Valley relocation. The district said low enrollment in the school for the blind has informed the decision to move to Oro Valley with only the deaf students. Blind students will be served in cooperative sites in the Tucson Unified School District, where Director of Itinerant Services Jason Lilly said they will receive Braille instruction, keyboarding skills and access to the general education curriculum using assistive technology.
Lilly said Pueblo High School and Morgan Maxwell K-8 would be the cooperative sites for blind students to attend. He said ASDB will provide other services like teachers of the visually impaired, mobility specialists and low vision equipment.
In previous months, the district has said that the school will meet with every Tucson ASDB family to determine their path forward, even if that means making an exception to send a blind or low vision student to the new Oro Valley campus.
Beata Tarasiuk’s daughter, Kasia, is a third-grader in the blind and visually impaired program. She said her family has yet to have a placement meeting with the school.
Tarasiuk showed up to Thursday’s board meeting with a hot pink poster in hand citing Arizona’s population growth over the years. She challenged Superintendent Annette Reichman’s claim that declining birth rates justify the downsizing of Tucson campus operations.
“The practices in ASDB today are not sustainable. We know it, as parents. The employees here know it. Everybody knows it,” she said.
Lisa Furr, an alum and former employee, suggested that the board reconsider the district’s administrative structures and the superintendent’s recommendation to move two out of 12 total leadership positions into executive leadership roles.
“From my perspective, as an alumni and a former employee in the early 90s, the current administrative structure appears larger than what I recall during my time in the school when we had more students and more frontline staff,” she said.
The ASDB governing board has less than 30 days to vote on the proposed salary schedule before incoming teachers sign their contracts for the following school year.
