City starts down the path to pre-K pay parity
Some pre-K teachers working for community-based organizations have won a battle in their fight to be paid the same as pre-K teachers working for the city’s Department of Education. The mayor and the City Council announced on Tuesday that a new contract agreement will bump up the salary of some CBO teachers by $20,000, bringing them one step closer to pay parity.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said during a pay parity rally in June that a DOE teacher with a master’s degree who has been in the system for eight years earns about $85,000 a year — while teachers with the same qualifications teaching at a CBO earn around $49,000 annually.
The new tentative contract agreement would provide a pathway to pay parity between certified early childhood education teachers at CBOs — which account for most of the children enrolled in the city’s universal pre-K program — and entry-rate DOE salaries by October 2021. The tentative agreement also includes additional compensation for non-certified teachers and support staff, as well as health care cost reductions.