“We just want to be treated equally,” said North County High School teacher Dennis Sullivan.

He grips a skinny, green marker and draws a circle around his annual salary: $62,344. Then Sullivan draws an arrow to another number, several rows down. The 15-year teacher said he should be earning that amount: $73,046.

Another North County teacher, Katrina Griffin, said she’s reached her “tipping point.” The veteran teacher has been working in Anne Arundel County for 17 years, but said she’s stuck on a pay step that is five years behind.

“I’ve done really good things for the county, I have honed my craft to the highest level possible,” said Griffin, who has been recognized locally and nationally for spearheading the district’s German language program. “If this isn’t going to be taken seriously — because I haven’t seen any movement on this in years — I’m going to look for other opportunities elsewhere.”

The issue of pay gaps is not new. County teachers expected pay freezes during the 2008 recession and its aftermath, when county officials denied budget requests that would fund step increases, said Russell Leone, president of the countywide teachers’ union.

But not it’s an equity issue, said Mike Wierzbicki, a social studies teacher at North County. New teachers — with comparable experience — can enter the county and earn much more than veterans.

There are currently 5,811 teachers who are on pay steps that do not match up with their experience, Leone said.

Wierzbicki claims it would cost about $11.5 million to bring about 2,900 teachers that are between three and seven steps behind their experience to just two steps behind, according to numbers provided by the teachers’ union.

With budget talks underway, some teachers — fed up with what they call inequity — want Board of Education members to make it a priority in the upcoming budget.

Pay steps typically correlate to years of experience. For example, a teacher in his first year will earn a step-one salary; a teacher in her 10th year will earn a step-10 salary.

But new teachers are docked one year, and there are discrepancies in veteran teachers’ pay because of the 2008 salary freeze.

Wierzbicki has 15 years of teaching under his belt, but is earning only as much as a teacher in their seventh year. A teacher who has been in Howard County for the same amount of time can transfer to Anne Arundel and earn $9,400 more than Wierzbicki, he said.

Leone said it could take years to restore lost steps to teachers.

Four years is the goal, with new County Executive Steuart Pittman promising to make the issue a priority.

Why do teachers stay if they say the pay is inequitable? English teacher and cheerleading coach Jennifer Fulwiler said it’s because she has deep roots in the community.

“I’ve literally never left North County,” she said.

Fulwiler graduated with North County’s first graduating class in 1991. She returned to the school to teach. She heads the cheerleading squad and said she pulled her daughter out of her neighborhood school to attend North County.

“We know the impact North County has had on us, so we don’t leave,” she said. “We know the needs of the community, we have the rapport and that’s invaluable.”

Fulwiler said she juggles four jobs to make ends meet, including gigs teaching in North County’s evening and twilight school programs.

“I taught their siblings and I went to school with their parents,” Fulwiler said about her students at North County. “If you bring in a new teacher from outside the county, it takes them two to three years to build relationships with the students and build rapport with the parents, and they’re gone before that.”

Fulwiler said a student came to her with a list of students who had brought guns to school. When a student thought about harming himself, Fulwiler said, she was the first person that student contacted.

The last time the school board publicly discussed teacher compensation, President Julie Hummer said the board could not say much because it is currently in negotiations with the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County.

“We all agree that we have teachers that are not where they should be on the step scale and, personally, I am optimistic that our new county government is sympathetic to that as well,” Hummer said.

The board on Wednesday started reviewing schools Superintendent George Arlotto’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget.

The county’s teachers’ union in October reached an agreement with the school board that included a 2 percent cost-of-living increase and mid-year step increase that will take effect in February.

The board also must balance dozens of other funding priorities, Hummer said, including recruiting new teachers to lead classrooms in the county.

But Sullivan said the board should focus on retaining the teachers it already has.

“People like Mike (Wierzbicki) and I stay because the diversity of this area is hard to come by,” he said. “It’s really the best of what America is, and we want to stay. I want to teach these kids. I really feel like that I can make a difference in this community. But they’re driving us away.”

llumpkin@capgaznews.com

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