Alex Guerrieri

737 Cherry Street

405-315-1968
Stillwater, OK 74074
October 15, 2019

Joy Hofmeister
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
PO Box 54601
Oklahoma City, OK 73154

October 28, 2019

Dear Joy Hofmeister:

I appreciate you fighting the long and hard battle to get Oklahoma teachers a higher pay grade,
especially since they are among the lowest-paid states in terms of teacher salaries in the United
States. The recently implemented pay raise was a step in the correct direction, but I would like to
see more steps made in effort to increase our teacher's salaries. I believe by doing so it will bring
more teachers back to Oklahoma to teach in our schools again. According to the Oklahoma
Department of Education on average in Payne county at Perkins-Tryon public schools, teachers
are paid a measly amount of $38,372. The poverty line in Oklahoma for a family of four is below
$24,600 for an individual that is teaching in the state of Oklahoma. Those dedicating their lives
to educate our children deserve a higher salary and should be nowhere close to the poverty line
in Oklahoma.

I believe the educators of the young minds in our state deserve to be paid just as well as doctors,
after all, they are in charge of how intelligent or incompetent the future generations will be. My
mother is an educator and for the amount of stress she goes through on a daily basis dealing with
problematic students with poor mannerisms, I believe she deserves a salary that reflects the
amount of hard work and patience that must take. Her pay and all Oklahoma teacher’s pay needs
to be increased or we cause our public schools to continue to go understaffed, possibly becoming
even worse than they are currently. In 2014 according to Oklahoma watch Oklahoma City public
schools have 403 teaching vacancies that needed to be filled by the following school year. Other
school systems are having the same problems.

According to Oklahoma Watch “Tulsa public schools have 84 positions to be filled which is
higher than the usual average that normally totals around 30 to 40 vacancies.” My opinion on
why any Oklahoma school is struggling to find teachers is the salary they get for the amount of
work they put in. We are losing our educators to all the surrounding states because of the rate of
pay you can receive in any other state that is higher than what you can obtain in Oklahoma. I
don’t blame any of the teachers that made to move to increase their salary because at the end of
the day you have to feed your family and pay for the modern amenities that today's world has to
offer us. I would not be surprised if we lose more and more teachers each year to the other 49
states because of how little they are getting paid for their jobs today.

The only way to keep teachers in Oklahoma is to give them a reason to stay and that reason is a
great increase in the rate of pay and the benefits they receive for working in the public education
system. Our state is behind in terms of teacher salary wages and it is hurting our teachers. This
will also threaten the quality of education the students are receiving if we must continually
implement emergency teacher certifications across the state. Compared to other states our lack of
funding is the main reason why this state cannot attract more teachers looking for work or keep
the few that we currently still have.

We have raised the minimum salary for Oklahoma teachers to compete with some of the other
states. I believe that no one in their right mind would take less money and benefits to do the same
job that they can do somewhere else for nearly double their money in most cases. The legislation
takes of advantage of the fact that they know teachers will stay in Oklahoma for the students to
receive an education, even though the pay is just downright terrible. A survey conducted by
Theresa Cullen who is a professor at the University of Oklahoma states that 250 teachers that
began a career of teaching in Oklahoma ending up teaching in another state a total of 80 percent
of them left for the money that could be made in other states. Oklahoma doesn’t have the lowest
paid teachers in the country, they are definitely bottom 3 the legislators need to work harder to
put Oklahoma teachers at the top 3 best paid in the country.

Sincerely

Alex Guerrieri
 Work Cited:

Palmer, J. (2017, January 9). Teacher Salaries, by District. Retrieved from

https://oklahomawatch.org/2017/01/06/teacher-salaries-by-district-2/.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Courtney Cullison // clcullison@okpolicy.org Courtney Cullison joined

OK Policy in March 2017 as a policy analyst focusing on issues of economic opportunity and

financial security. Before coming to OK Policy, clcullison@okpolicy.org, C. C. //, & Courtney

Cullison joined OK Policy in March 2017 as a policy analyst focusing on issues of economic

opportunity and financial security. Before coming to OK Policy. (2019, May 2). Oklahoma

Poverty Profile. Retrieved from https://okpolicy.org/2017-oklahoma-poverty-profile/.

| April 25, 2014. (2014, June 23). With Nearly Lowest Pay in the U.S., Oklahoma Schools

Struggle to Recruit Teachers. Retrieved from https://oklahomawatch.org/2014/04/25/with-lower-

pay-to-offer-schools-struggle-to-recruit-teachers/.