SC/TA Blog

After completely trashing the job protections and compensation schedules of Florida’s teachers over a decade ago, the Florida Legislature is now considering returning some flexibility to local districts and their unions. This proposed move would do much to remedy the inequities between different groups of teachers. The Florida Legislature banned teachers hired after 2011 from […]

The two sides reached agreement on a salary settlement for this year’s contract. The settlement will assure that Sarasota County teachers remain the highest paid in the State of Florida, as well as keeping up with inflation (3.2% this year). The proposed settlement calls for a 2% one-time supplement to […]

Last week’s bargaining session was almost surreal. The district’s chief financial officer (CFO) Bonnie Penner, a relative newcomer to the district, told us how the district has never used its fund balance in negotiations before. This is a key issue to us as the district has a rather large unassigned […]

I had high hopes that under new leadership, our district could avoid this yearly game of management coming in and crying poor, leaving us to spend months hammering out a decent salary increase, while employees wait to receive the yearly cost-of-living raise they have rightly earned.... But unfortunately, management's behavior at Monday’s session does not demonstrate a similar serious desire on their part.

An across-the-board pay raise for Sarasota County Schools employees is the goal, despite a state system that devotes more money disproportionately to new teachers, and bonuses.