Hopes to meet with School Board this week
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Osceola County School Superintendent Debra Pace said the district is trying to balance the impact of inflation with “a responsibility to be fiscally responsible.” PHOTO/SDOC VIDEO
Teachers and support staff from the Osceola County Education Association are hoping to head into 2023 with more money in their paychecks after requesting an 8.7% cost of living adjustment from the School Board.
The union arrived at the 8.7% figure based on the upcoming COLA being added to federal Social Security payments.
“We figured if all of the federal government could agree that 8.7% is what everyone across the country needs for social security cost of living, then that would make sense to apply in our county, as well,” said Emily Gorentz, the instructional vice president for the OCEA.
Prior to organizing members to offer dozens of public comments at a November school board meeting, the OCEA started a petition titled, “Cost of Living Adjustment for SDOC Teachers,” which now has nearly 5,000 signatures. In the weeks since that meeting, Gorentz has been working to make the union’s requests known before the School Board held an executive workshop Tuesday.
With that executive session closed to the public, union members have been emailing board members to express their support.
“Because we can’t be in the room, we can at least be in their inbox and have that continued presence there,” Gorentz said. “We’ll of course be at the board meeting on Dec. 13, and then we have put in a request to bargain with them (today) in the hopes that they are willing to act on whatever decision they come to. We’re doing everything we can to make ourselves available.”
Osceola County School District Superintendent Dr. Debra Pace said she and the Board are limited in what they could speak about since ongoing bargaining information is confidential, but said that they are working to examine the budget, and will discuss the issue further during the executive session.
“We know how very hard our teachers and support staff work,” Pace said. “We know that inflation is impacting everybody. We also have a responsibility to be fiscally responsible.”
Gorentz said that one of the things she wants to bring attention to is the fact that this raise would impact support staff, as well as teachers — many of whom are living paycheckto- paycheck.
“Our support professionals, many of them are just making $15 per hour and working seven-and-a-half hour days, so they’re making about $22,000 per year,” she said. “If you’re raising a family of four, the federal government says the poverty line is $24,000. We literally have the majority of our support staff living below the poverty line.”