BOE chair: Proposed salary hike reasonable

CNMI Board of Education chair Marylou Ada is taking issue with what she describes as “baseless rumors” about the disparity of salaries among teachers and administrative officers in the Public School System.

“One has to understand that the salary compensation plan from the Board of Education is based on reasonable grounds,” she said. “We look at three qualifications: years of service in PSS, certifications and professional development of the individual. Nothing more, nothing less.”

These are factored into the salary level of a teacher or administrative official, she said.

“So not all teachers that were highly qualified were treated in the same category because some of them have not been certified. After one receives a basic certification, the need to get certified on other teaching programs never stop and we give credence to that,” she added.

“For example, if one has the basic certification and not a lot of experience, then you are not going to get much further than somebody who has gone and finished a master’s degree, attended a lot of professional development, and has been employed by PSS for 15 years,” Ada said.

The difference weighs in because the board follows a rigorous merit system for the compensation plan.

“The more you advance yourself, the more you get a higher salary. But people are comparing apple to oranges without looking at the facts of how we compensate them. Everybody thinks that all the teachers should be [at] the same level when it comes to salary increase,” she said.

“The issue got blown out of proportion but what we look at are the number of years of experience, certifications, and what level of degrees are you holding. Some of them are master’s degree holders and some [have] double master’s degree and they get additional credit for that,” she added.

According to Ada, some teachers may have highly-qualified certifications 1 and 2 and may have been in the system for a time but if they only have a bachelor’s degree, the line is drawn there, compared to someone with a master’s degree.

“The more you want to go up, the more you want to improve yourself professionally. It boils down to professional development, particularly the years of development and how far are you along with your educational attainment. It may be master’s level, and if you have a double master’s, that means more points,” she said.

“They have this perception that every teacher, every councilor, every librarian should be receiving the same salary because…every administrative officer 3 receives the same salary and they are added 5 percent every year. But in our system, we are talking about professional people that have years of experience and higher educational attainment that’s different from other colleagues,” she added.