Superintendent Dr. Curtis Cain hosted weekly Coffee with Dr. Cain meetings throughout October to talk to community members about Prop S. Prop S is a proposed $0.45 tax levy that would dedicate funds to increasing staff salaries and expanding healthcare benefits. Karen Roberts, community member, attended a Coffee with Dr. Cain event on Friday, Oct. 3 to learn more about the proposition.
Roberts lives in Rockwood but home-schooled her three children. She said that she can see the need for a teacher salary increase, but wants to be sure that current budgets are using funds wisely.
“Have we looked at all the options, and is the information being presented with honesty and transparency?” Roberts said.
Roberts said everyone is facing hard costs now. However, she feels that comparing Rockwood to other school districts can be misleading.
“I don’t like to see comparisons between school districts when the return on investment of what we’re investing is not producing the level of education that I think should be produced,” Roberts said.
In addition to salary, other factors impact the quality of education, Roberts said. For example, Roberts said she thinks that curriculum should change, and technologies like iPads and Chromebooks should be eliminated.
“Your brain needs to be developed more hands-on, not punching in numbers and things on computers,” Roberts said.
Growing up in the Rockwood School District, Christy Cox, 2005 graduate, has taught in both Missouri and Oklahoma before leaving the profession because she couldn’t pay her bills. Now Cox has kids that attend Westridge Elementary School and Crestview Middle School.
While in Oklahoma, Cox said she saw a severe teacher shortage, and now worries that Rockwood will face the same issue.
“The biggest problem that I saw was that we just had fewer and fewer really good teachers coming in and we had high turnover rates,” Cox said. “We’re talking like 30% of our teachers were turning over every year.”
At Oklahoma University, only around 10 to 20 students were graduating with elementary education degrees, and many who did ended up moving to Texas to teach, Cox said.
Cox runs a pro Prop S Facebook group called Rockwood Families United for Teachers Facebook. Cox said she understands the concern towards tax increases, but fears that if Prop S doesn’t pass, the quality of education will suffer.
“Teaching needs to be a place where people feel like they can thrive as professionals and personally, and I’m worried that’s not what’s going to happen,” Cox said.
Stephanie Merritt, ISS teacher, has taught in the district for the past four years. Merritt said she works with each of her students to create an individualized plan that allows them to stay caught up and be prepared once they leave ISS.
“I believe in behavior intervention that is restorative and so much of what I do is not by job-title required,” Merritt said.
Merritt said she believes that Prop S would help to attract staff members to positions that are routinely underpaid.
“I run a very large classroom in a program that’s unique. I’ve never been allowed compensation that matches the output and the heart and soul I put into this program,” Merritt said.
Shreyas Iyer, senior, is a cadet teacher for social studies teacher Lynn Richardon’s AP Economics class. He enjoyed taking the class last year and said cadet teaching has shown him how difficult and important teaching is.
“It’s definitely very rewarding to see students start to understand what you’re teaching them,” Iyer said.
Iyer doesn’t want to be a teacher, but said he would possibly be interested in being a professor when he is further along in his career. He said he supports Prop S because he said staff are underpaid for the work they do.
“It’s so crucial what they do that they need the resources to be able to continue providing a great learning environment for the students,” Iyer said.
