In the days leading to the April 2 municipal election, we'll be publishing responses from School Board candidates to a range of questions. Read other questions at adn.com/cityelection
Q: In general, including benefits, do you feel teachers are over-compensated, under-compensated or compensated about right?
School Board Seat A
Bettye Davis: I would like to pay our teachers more if we could afford it
Don Smith: I believe that they are compensated fairly. Teaching is a profession and teachers need a fair wage and benefits. We are going to have to take a long look at the benefits as they are rising faster than wages.
School Board Seat B
Stephanie Cornwell-George: If a teacher got to go to work from 8-4 and be done with their job, go home and have a balance between home and work, I would say that the compensation is good. In reality, teachers write plans, grade work, talk with parents, attend training, etc. on their own time. If we logged every hour they worked in and out of the classroom, then I would say that they are under compensated.
Eric Croft: In our district, I feel that our teachers have a generally appropriate salary level, but that the amount the district spends on health benefits is unsustainable. In our country, I feel we should value and pay our teachers more. In many of the countries with high performing schools, teachers are paid much closer to engineers and other highly-educated professionals.
David Nees: Under compensated. The fact is teachers are now paid less with worse retirement benefit and more costly health benefits then when I started in 1983, Inflation corrected dollars.