I'm confused, what is the point of the 1/2 days once per month? Today, it's my understanding that on-team teachers at the middle school were out all day. I thought the purpose of the 1/2 days once per month was to provide team planning and collaboration.

This is a great example of lack of communication and keeping parents in the dark. Kids have only been back at school 1 day after a 5 1/2 days off and now, no on-team teachers? What gives?

And these same teachers will be looking for another great payday when they soon will b e negotiating another contract - remember - most teachers received a 25% raise over the 3 years of the contract. Just like you received a big pay raise each year for the past 3 years - correct?

MFD, you need to quit the lie that the teachers are making so much money now that they have their "BIG RAISE."

In fact, the most recent salaries came out on the DOE website - reflecting the 2013-2014 year - when your 'BIG RAISE' was implemented - and there are still only 25 communities out of over 325 communities total that paid less than Melrose. And most of those communities are in the far lower cost of living areas of the state. So Melrose teachers are still paid in the bottom 10% of teachers in the state. They will need several years of "big raises" to even get to the pay level that their colleagues in neighboring towns make.

Why don't you check it out yourself:
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/teachersalaries.aspx?mode=&year=2014&export=yes&orderBy=AVERAGE DESC

2013-2014? Really? Show me numbers from 2015-2016, when the bulk of the raises from the "new" contracts have taken effect. Don't cherry pick a stat from before that.

Exactly! According to the previous poster - teachers should get these big raises for the next 2 bargaining sessions - if so - major layoffs would be needed or a major override. Clearly - these alternatives won't happen.

In watching the SC meeting from Tuesday, I was struck by just how much the Mayor still doesn't get it, and just refuses to accept the obvious message that was sent with the override defeat. Instead of knuckling down and doing the job he was elected to do, he continues to whine, moan, and groan that the voters actually rejected his proposal, and now we're hearing more of his doom and gloom predictions - inaccurate predictions, by the way. It's gotten to the point that when it comes to money, I don't believe a word he says anymore.

Mayor, this is the amount of money you have available. Quit whining and get to work, because the money tree has died. Taxpayer wallets are not your own personal bottomless funding source. You want to make cuts? Then get rid of all the useless administrators you have falling all over themselves. There are so many of them running around now it looks like a Godzilla movie.

It isn't cherry picking - on that website, you can look at the salaries for the last decade and Melrose is always at the bottom. What is listed are the latest numbers from the DOE. But I can assure you, because we are starting so low, and we are not the only town that has given raises to their teachers, when the numbers come out next year, we will still be at the bottom of this list. I'll check back with you next year.

Of course it's cherry picking - you used an out of date stat to support your position, and ignored the reality by not factoring in the raises received through 2016. You can speculate as to whether that stat will show Melrose as still being on the low end, but you can't state that as fact until the numbers are there to prove it. What you stated was your opinion - you're certainly entitled to do that - but you are not entitled to state it as fact.

Regardless of state rankings with regard to teacher salaries, all Melrose teachers in the first 10 years get at least 2 if not three raises each year. One is the contract settlement percentage and the other is a "step" increase for each year in the system. The third is a "lane" change raise for adding credits or degrees. It all adds up to anywhere from 4-10 percent each year.
At the other end is the veteran staff who get the percentage increase and a "longevity" bonus for years in the system. All systems are comparable in the structure of longevity payments. A simple rule is about 2500.00 for 20-25 years service; 3000.00 for 25-30 years and 4000.00 for 30 years and above. The Melrose longevity specifics escape me but are in the teachers contract that is public information. These two salary increases add up to about a 5-8 percent increase each year.

I think you need to explain that a little better, for those who are not familiar with municipal contracts. There is a reason the budget line is called "salary and wages". For example, longevity is not considered salary per se. I recall the Mayor saying the new contract was a 1% "raise" per year (that's also inaccurate, but.....). What that means is the bottom line base pay increase, and doesn't include anything else, like step raises or lane changes. Those are all salary, but are never included in the percentage released as "the raise". Things like longevity and incentives are more rightly considered wages, and are negotiated separately from the salary percentage, and are also not included in the percentage called the "raise".

Think of like this: there is the "raise", and then there are the "increases". From the recipient's point of view, it's all "income". From the Mayor's perspective, the "raise" is the lower number, and the number he wants made public, even though it's smoke and mirrors. The actual bump in "income" is likely to be several times higher than that. That's why when Myron says they got as much as a 25% "raise" he is technically incorrect. What would be correct is to say that some teachers' incomes rose up to 25%.

And now that I have thoroughly confused almost everybody, I'll say good night.

Thanks for correcting my language and explaining the differences - you did an excellent job - I need to keep your explanations for future retrieval when this topic circulates again soon.

My pleasure. Glad to help.

And I forgot something else - stipends, which are paid over and above everything else for "specialty" positions. There is no way the average person would have any idea about all this stuff, which is why the Mayor gets away with his half-truths about it. It's also why the teacher's union was so tight-lipped about the last contract. They knew what the true cost was going to be all along. I'm not saying they didn't deserve a big raise - they most certainly did, but they knew if the true cost in actual dollars became known, there would have been a whole lot more resistance to it.

All good info and clarification. Bottom line is that teacher income is significantly higher than annual percentage collectively bargained