In 2011, my family moved from Florence to Haydenville. It was the year Williamsburg voted to build a new school. It was my first ever town meeting and young parents were vastly outnumbered by older adults; we were all but certain the new school would be voted down. Instead, it was overwhelmingly approved by something like 150 to 15. I teared up at the generosity and kindness of people who, on the surface, no longer directly benefited from this investment but voted to support it anyway.
Unexpectedly, we moved to Vermont for several years, then returned to the Pioneer Valley in the summer of 2020. It was the height of the pandemic and we had to buy the only house we could find which was in Amherst. Especially during the pandemic, we found the district very fraught and moved our kids to other schools, determined to return to the Hampshire Regional district before our oldest child was in high school.
We moved to Westhampton about a year ago but the present climate of the district differs considerably from what we found at that Williamsburg town meeting. I don’t know where the resistance is coming from and I’m not sure it matters. At the end of the day, we sink or swim together and right now we are all losing.
■Students lose because—after a year of pleading—the only recourse faculty have is a “work to rule” strategy. “Work to rule” means kids don’t have a teacher’s instruction during study hall, don’t benefit from after school help if they need it, may not be able to get a college or work recommendation, or miss out on activities where teachers volunteer their time (e.g. homecoming, dances, class trips outside of school hours).
■Teachers lose on two fronts. First, “work to rule” causes moral injury. We are privileged to have educators at HRHS that are phenomenally dedicated. (For example, HRHS handled the pandemic better than any high school in the area largely because teachers worked so hard to make in-person education available while still maintaining a high standard of safety.) By denying teachers fair pay, we are saying, “Choose one. Risk your family’s economic security by working countless hours for free. Or give up the pride of doing your job to the highest standard and feel tormented by what students are missing. You can’t have both.” That is a terrible choice to force on them. Second, they are violating “work to rule” left and right by continuing to work outside their contract, i.e. to volunteer! Their last plea for fair pay is doomed to fail because people will not feel the pinch of “you get what you pay for” if teachers continue to do unpaid work.We forced them to make a terrible choice, and still they chose us: our kids, our communities. I am dumbfounded that we would risk losing even a single educator who demonstrates this level of commitment.
■Parents lose. Regardless of the experience at the elementary level, kids need a strong middle and high school experience in order to succeed as adults. This dispute is taking a huge emotional toll on the faculty and while I think they are doing a remarkable job of shielding kids, adolescence is a vulnerable time. I want my kids to be surrounded by adults who will go the extra mile, but not at their own expense. To ask that of the teachers feels exploitative and wrong.
■Residents and communities lose and, if we want to focus on dollars, this group will take the biggest hit. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, “home values increased by $20 per dollar that was spent on public schools in a community.” A study by Realtor.com showed that homes in “top school districts are valued 49% higher than the country’s median home price.” To withhold fair pay at the risk of compromising the overall quality and performance of the district may seem pennywise, but it is unequivocally pound foolish.
Finally, news media coverage of this dispute has deservedly cast the district in a very unfavorable light. We have already lost faculty over this; in one instance, the district is paying six figures to fill one position with a temporary contract hire! If we lose more teachers, we will likely pay more to fill additional absences. Moreover, if the HRHS contract lags far behind other districts, we should not expect to recruit and retain teachers who are as talented and dedicated as the ones we have already!
Teachers deserve to be paid fairly. The current contract offer — increases of 2% in the first two years and 2.5% in the third year — is inadequate and means the teachers at HRHS are not only making less than in many other local districts, they are even making considerably less than some elementary teachers in the district.
School Committee members need to summon the gumption to advocate in their own communities to support public education for everyone’s benefit. Their job is not only to respond to public opinion; it is also to shape it informed by their experience and insight about the value of a strong public school system.
Heidi Haghighi lives in Westhampton.