OUR  REASONS
After working nearly a year -and-a-half without a contract, we arrived at the very difficult and painful decision to call the strike that began October 15, 2007.  We have bargained in good faith and had hoped that a solution would be found, but in the final bargaining sessions before the strike, the board made it clear that they were no longer willing to bargain and continue productive contract talks.  Our desire is to be in the classroom with our students, but the school board left us with no choice.

OUR CONCERNS
Those who move into the Seneca Valley School District and establish places of business within the district, care about maintaining the excellent reputation of our school district. One of the worst things that can happen to a district is high teacher turnover.  The district is already nicknamed “Stepping Stone Seneca” because of young teachers as well as administrators who only stay at Seneca Valley for a few years before moving onto positions at higher paying districts.  Our award-winning teachers deliver outstanding curricula as well as create and administer awarding classroom and extra curriculum programs.  It is essential that the Seneca Valley attracts and maintains quality teachers.  There is a substantial gap in the career earnings between Seneca Valley and area districts of similar wealth and size.  Veteran teachers do not have the ability to seek employment in a different school district because veterans who change districts are usually placed at a significantly lower step.  In reality, veteran teachers tend to stay here, and have earned the right to be fairly compensated for their experience. 

OUR DILEMMA
The School Board’s “last, best, offer” of a 4% raise may sound reasonable to many in the community, but that number is over-simplified.  In many jobs, a recent hire can receive the same pay as a veteran employee.  It isn’t that way with teachers.  We earn pay by experience.  Currently, teacher salaries are on a nineteen step schedule.  That means that it takes a beginning teacher nineteen years to reach the maximum, or career rate, pay.  In addition to progressing vertically through the schedule at one step per year, a teacher can also move horizontally across the schedule, through the columns for bachelor’s, master’s, master’s plus 15 credits and master’s plus 30 credits.  The money difference between any two vertical steps is called the increment.  Therefore, a year-one teacher earns step one pay and automatically moves to step two the following year with a raise in pay called an increment.  This increment is not a traditional pay raise; it is just recognition for experience.  The experienced teachers on step 19 do not receive any increment since they do not move to a higher step.  The only pay raise that they receive is the true percentage raise on scale.  In the board’s offer, the 4% offer includes both the 2.24% incremental cost and a 1.76% raise. The teachers at the top would only receive the 1.76%.  The increased health care contributions would result in a substantial loss of net pay for about 30% of the SV teachers.  We find this arrangement fundamentally unfair to our veteran teachers and therefore unacceptable.

Ask your board members why they won't enable Seneca Valley graduates to be the best-prepared young people in Western Pennsylvania.  See the facts for yourself.

Our students deserve the best
We think our students deserve more.
How our award-winning teachers stack up.

Resources for our students
Money for our children.
SVSD Fund Balance - 2002-2006     
Fund Balance as a percent of total expenditure    
Let's look at the facts. 

What is a fund balance? A fund balance is created when the school district has money left over at the end of its fiscal year from either under spending the budget or taking in additional revenue.

Ask a school board member these questions. 

Teacher Negotiations Team

Patrick Andrekovich   Chief Negotiator
Polly Shaw
George Trew
Rich Norris
Lori Rehm