PSS counselors clamor for ‘equitable’ salaries

The Public School System Human Resources Office, along with the PSS fiscal and budget team, has been tasked by the Board of Education to come up with a financial study that would detail the impact of re-adjusting public school counselors’ salary in a level comparable with that of classroom teachers.

BOE Fiscal and Personnel Committee Chair Marja Lee Taitano told HR Officer Charlie Kenty and acting fiscal budget officer Bill Matson to prepare and present the impact study to the board within 10 days beginning Tuesday amid concerns raised by PSS counselors that the pending initiative to reclassify them to teacher status must also cover an equitable salary.

PSS counselors mostly from Marianas High School and Hopwood Junior High School trooped to the fiscal and personnel committee meeting early this week to inform the state board of their grievances.

Elaine Perez, resident counselor at MHS, aired concerns on behalf of other counselors that their counseling tasks entail more hours of work than classroom teachers, particularly in a 1,800-student campus like MHS.

A masters degree holder with a cumulative 12-year counseling and teaching experience, Ms. Perez feels counselors such as herself should receive “equitable” salaries as much as the next teacher.

Ms. Taitano, at the meeting, assured counselors the board will act swiftly on the pending issue which has dragged on for months now.

“We can’t give you the whole pie but we will give you all we can. We just have to sit down and assess how this will affect the entire system’s budget,” the Rota board member told the counselors.

“It was never the board’s intention to harm anybody but rather to put you [counselors] in the same level as teachers. But please, be patient with us,” she added.

The HRO and the fiscal and budget office have been assigned to back track on previous PSS expenditure records to substantiate and determine the impact of the 10 percent salary increase given to public school teachers and aides last 1997.

“We will be coming out with an analysis to have an understanding of what it would cost PSS to pay the counselors more in a teacher pay scale level,” said Mr. Matson.

PSS early this year initiated efforts to convert its counselors to certified counselors. The school system’s legal counsel is set to draw up the new contracts for the counselors’ signature, which will only be final after BOE releases a decision on the appropriate pay schedule that will apply to concerned parties.

Under the contract, counselors will occupy positions equal to that of teachers and will be reporting to school 190 days per year.

CNMI’s 16 public schools currently employ some 17 counselors, according to PSS.