The City Trims Its School Budget
Facing economic pressure, the school board cuts teacher salaries and shortens the school year, sparking a detailed accounting of educator compensation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
After a hard, day-long struggle to reach an agreement where each member of the board of education had a separate basis of reduction, the board this afternoon agreed upon a $8,187 cut in the salaries of teachers, and also cut the school year from ten months to nine. The heavy cuts are made on the principals. Prof. Roberts, of the high school, is cut from $2,400 to $1,710. This is figured out, however, as only a 10 per cent actual cut, inasmuch as the school year is reduced one month. For instance, Mr. Roberts' salary had been 'readjusted' from $2,400 to $2,000, and deducting one month it would be $1,800, and then cutting 5 per cent, it would be $1,710.
“After a hard, day-long struggle... the board this afternoon agreed upon a $8,187 cut in the salaries of teachers.”
Budgetary disputes over teacher pay and the length of the school year are a perennial issue in Seattle politics, showing that the squeeze on public education funding is as old as the city's institution of the school board itself.
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