This petition is being written to convince Florida Senator Joe Gruters of District 23 in Sarasota, Florida to place this much needed bill on the agenda.

In order to understand what has many veteran teachers jumping ship and fleeing their once loved career, you need to go back to 2011 when the State passed SB 736, now FL Statute 1012.22. This was written to help FL earn some of the federal "Race to the Top" funds and created a performance pay system. Teachers who were already in the system were allowed to stay on the "grandfathered" pay scale.

That sounds fair, right? But here's why it wasn't.... Let's say a teacher started their career, way back in 1999. They were typically given a salary step scale, which showed a salary scale based on the number of years that they worked.  While most teachers knew they were never going to strike it rich, they believed that there was a plan to eventually raise their compensation to a comfortable level before they reached retirement. So if they put in their time and did their jobs then they would receive larger pay bumps towards the end of their 30 years which would help their pension. Unfortunately, FL Statute 1012.22 also mandated that those teachers on the grandfathered pay scale, regardless of THEIR performance, could NEVER receive a larger raise than those teachers rated "highly effective" on the new pay for performance plan. This bill made it impossible to reward those teachers nearing retirement (20+ years!) with those larger "steps" or pay increases they had been promised their whole careers!

Since 2011 teachers have occasionally been given small percentage increases across the board and a few bonuses as well. The problem is, bonuses are taxed at a much higher rate and are not factored in to our retirement or considered when applying for a loan or mortgage. For example, Broward county's hard working educators were given a whopping 1.07% raise along with a $2,000 "bonus" this year. Meanwhile, social security recipients are getting a 5.9% increase to help out with inflation.

This bill SB 298 / HB 587 amends FL Statute 1012.22 to allow local districts who have met the new basic minimum teacher salary, to use their extra funds to raise the salaries of effective teachers on the grandfathered pay scale.

In 2020 Florida was ranked 49th in overall teacher pay, yet beginning teacher pay ranked 30th in the US BEFORE Governor Desantis very generously raised ONLY beginning teacher's pay. Veteran teachers have stuck with the profession and continued to teach Florida's children to the best of their abilities through "No Child Left Behind," "Race to the Top," Common Core, Code Red Drills, mandatory pension contribution, new state standards, Covid 19, remote learning, and teaching with a mask on all day long. Teachers have continued to evolve their craft and adapt their skills through every new setback and change and they still keep teaching. Now it is time to do right by those veteran teachers who have stuck it out in the trenches over the years and continue to do so. Please do right by them and put SB 298 on the agenda.