NYC Pre-K Teachers To Get Huge Raises In Bid To Equalize Pay

NEW YORK — Some New York City pre-kindergarten teachers will get raises of more than $20,000 under a plan to equalize pay in the city's early education system, officials said Tuesday.

The plan aims to pay teachers molding the minds of 3-and-4-year-olds in community daycare centers the same starting salaries as their counterparts in the city's public schools, an issue that has dogged Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration for months.

"This agreement is fair to the people who do the work, fair to our families and our children, also fair to our taxpayers," de Blasio, a Democrat, said at a news conference in City Hall.

The raises are part of a tentative deal between the Day Care Council of New York, a group representing publicly funded daycare centers, and District Council 1707 Local 205, the labor union representing about 4,200 teachers and support staffers who work in those centers.

If the union's members approve it, the agreement would raise the starting pay of certified pre-K teachers to the same level as city Department of Education instructors on a three-year schedule, officials said.

That means a new teacher with a bachelor's degree would be paid $61,070 in October 2021, up about $17,000 from the previous rate, the mayor's office said. And a new teacher with a master's degree would eventually get $68,652, an increase of $20,784, officials said. The pay hikes will cost the city $15 million a year when they are fully implemented, Budget Director Melanie Hartzog said.

The deal affects some 315 certified teachers, about 900 uncertified teachers and about 3,000 support staffers such as custodians, cooks and teacher aides, according to officials. Non-certified teachers and support staff will also get a pay bump in the form of an $1,800 ratification bonus and a 2.75 percent raise in October 2021, according to the mayor's office.

The proposed agreement follows an aggressive push by service providers and the City Council to achieve pay parity in the city's pre-kindergarten programs, which de Blasio has counted as one of his major achievements.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson made the issue his top priority in his budget negotiations with City Hall; de Blasio said Johnson raised it "approximately 247 times." That apparently led the mayor to commit to establishing pay parity as part of his 2020 budget deal with the Council.

"All NYC teachers deserve the same pay, the same benefits and the same respect, and when we provide pay parity in education, we provide better educational opportunities for our students," Johnson, a Democrat, said in a statement.

But there's still a long way to go. City Hall will now move on to negotiations with District Council 1707 Local 95, which represents more than 2,000 employees of Head Start child care programs, said Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion.

And there are about two early education workers who do not belong to a union for each worker that is in one, officials said.

But an advocacy group for service providers nonetheless praised the new deal as a milestone on the road to pay parity.

"Early childhood education staff work hard every day at community-based organizations ... to educate and care for New York City children and deserve fair compensation for their work," said Susan Stamler, the executive director of United Neighborhood Houses, in a statement.