Highlights of the Board of Education's Recent Proposal...
1) A "Hard Cap" on Health Insurance
Note, House Bill 152 limited the amount of premiums a district could pay for medical insurance for employees to either a "hard cap" or the "80/20" plan.  The Harper Creek Board is offering the option that would hurt teachers the most.  See below:

2) Removal of all tenure language and refusal of a (LOA) Letter of Agreement
Note, the LOA is legal, costs nothing, and honors previous bargaining when and if the law changes.  

3) A financial offer that leaves no doubt as to what the Harper Creek Board considers teachers are worth:
All Step 1 (BA, BA+, MA, PhD/EdD) receive a $500 increase.  
So, before taxes a new teacher would earn an additional $2.68 for each school work day or 34 cents an hour. But, at least it leaves no doubt as to Harper Creek's Board of Education perception of a teacher's value.  
Then the Board offered the top steps on the BA+, MA, and PhD/EdD salary lanes receive .75% increase.  So, a PhD of more than twenty-five years would earn $515 more a year. The other top steps would receive less.  Consider the grants, fund raisers, and community service hours teachers have donated to the district this year.  Harper Creek is making money on its teachers and the Harper Creek Board appears to not be one bit bothered by the fact.  In addition, consider the fact that the Harper Creek Board spends $276 dollars for a Thrun Lawyer to attend a Harper Creek Board Meeting for one hour and twenty minutes.  It is disheartening.

The final insult?  Top steps on BA+, MA and PhD/EdD earn .25 percent bonus, off-schedule, with an effective or highly effective evaluation.  Step increases for all other members will occur if a member receives a performance evaluation of effective or higher.

I guess we know what the Harper Creek Board of Education feels teachers are worth.  

One Final Note On Steps and Lanes:  The Harper Creek Board is revising the history of steps and lanes.  Salary schedules are charts that outline teacher pay based on years of experience and education. It is a system that was established to allow teachers to acquire a fair pay for their degrees, but not immediately.  Thus, districts were able to slowly reach a fair pay without causing undue hardship on the school finances.  However, each step needs to be increased as the cost of living rises. The Harper Creek Board is very aware that one cannot expect to have the same amount of purchasing power if a salary is never increased.  

The report, Rankings and Estimates: Rankings of the States 2009 and Estimates of School Statistics 2010, found that, adjusting for inflation, teacher pay increased only 3.4 percent on average, or $177 per year, from 1999-2009, and that teachers in several states experienced what amounts to pay cuts.

Some states actually saw teacher salaries relative to inflation decline by 5 percent or more.  Those states include Michigan (-6.8 percent).  

Harper Creek does not have to participate in the assault on teachers.