{"id":741,"date":"2009-05-10T10:16:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-10T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/05\/10\/is-this-a-time-for-school-teachers-to-demand-raises\/"},"modified":"2009-05-10T10:16:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-10T14:16:00","slug":"is-this-a-time-for-school-teachers-to-demand-raises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/05\/10\/is-this-a-time-for-school-teachers-to-demand-raises\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this a time for school teachers to demand raises?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Plattsburgh Press-Republican <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pressrepublican.com\/0100_news\/local_story_129224023.html\">is reporting<\/a> that schoolteachers in Tupper Lake will receive a 4.25% raise next year under their contract with the local school district.<\/p>\n<p>That means their neighbors will pay more taxes &#8212; 3.2% more to be exact &#8212; despite the fact that the district will have fewer teachers serving their children.<\/p>\n<p>These are tough economic times for North Country families.  Unemployment is flirting with double-digits.  Property taxes are punitively high already.<\/p>\n<p>So what do you think?  Is this a time when public sector employees should be taking raises? <\/p>\n<p>Even if they were agreed to under contracts established before the economic meltdown occurred, should those labor deals be revisited?<\/p>\n<p>Other North Country districts &#8212; Crown Point <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pressrepublican.com\/0100_news\/local_story_112221403.html\/resources_printstory\">drew headlines<\/a> recently &#8212; are going a different direction, with teachers accepting pay freezes but demanding job security.<\/p>\n<p>Teachers are already among the highest paid, best-benefited workers in most North Country communities. <\/p>\n<p>Is there a concern that real resentment could develop between the school district employees and the neighbors who are paying their salaries?<\/p>\n<p>Teachers:  what do you think?  If you&#8217;re getting a raise next year, how do you feel about it? <\/p>\n<p>And how do you feel about taking a pay increase at a time when your colleagues are being cut?<\/p>\n<p>I know these are tough questions &#8212; we all love our kids&#8217; schoolteachers &#8212; but this happens to be a place where a lot of tough trends (the souring economy, property taxes, education woes, etc.) converge&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Comments welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Plattsburgh Press-Republican is reporting that schoolteachers in Tupper Lake will receive a 4.25% raise [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}