The Robbinsville Township Board of Education and the Robbinsville Public School District have a responsibility to our students, our residents, and our community.
We respect and value all our teachers, staff, and administrators for their important work in educating our students. We also realize that an unsettled employment contract can have a toll on the school community, stakeholders, and employees. As you may be aware, the Robbinsville Education Association negotiations committee and its New Jersey Education Association representative held a public forum to discuss the status of negotiations on June 6.
During that event and since that time, the REA and surrogates have made attempts at school board meetings, and public statements on social media and local newspapers, which have ranged from genuine issues to misleading assertions. Their use of improper comparison of salary guides and cherry-picked data points does not provide accurate apples to apples compensation analysis leading to patent falsehoods on the status of negotiations.
While the intent may be merely to drum up intensity regardless of the facts, pushing people to believe things and act upon false information is detrimental to the cause of both the REA and the school district. Our teachers value the flexibility and autonomy that we offer at Robbinsville Schools. We appreciate that many of our teachers do not earn the income that they otherwise could outside education in the private sector, but they enjoy generous benefits related to health insurance, pension retirement benefits, and of course the great value in making a difference in a child’s education. We also have a highly admired and desired School District where people want to work and go to school. Simply put, Robbinsville has been and continues to be a great place to work, live and raise a family.
While Robbinsville has aggregately less money to spend per pupil than any of its County counterparts, the REA and the Board have mutually agreed to fair and reasonable contracts for decades. In terms of salary, please consider that it is difficult and can be misleading to compare Robbinsville salaries with other districts because the number of “steps” varies. For example, Ewing has 21 steps, while Robbinsville has only 17. Despite this complication, we know that Robbinsville Schools are very competitive and pay more in the beginning years of the guide compared to many other school districts. There are much more details on the salaries and guides and without getting bogged down in the details of salary guide examination and comparative district socioeconomics, there is a wealth of data that we are eager to share. To demonstrate these points for those that would be interested to spend time number crunching, please visit our ‘Fact and Fiction” page on the “Board of Education” page on the district website to see the salary comparisons and step guides across the districts in Mercer County.
We acknowledge that more work needs to be done, yet despite that have made drastic increases, around 6% for the past three years of data, in our overall classroom spending in recent years. However, Robbinsville Public Schools are simply unable to spend as much as many neighboring school districts due to several long-standing factors.
First, Robbinsville Public Schools have been underfunded by the state for more than a decade and though our schools have recently received increased amounts of state aid we are still significantly underfunded than most of our other school districts in Mercer County and across the state.
Second, although we have been able to hold the school property tax rate flat in the last few years, the Robbinsville Public School property tax rate is high and remains higher than many of the other school districts in Mercer County. Simply put, the Robbinsville residents and taxpayers have been overcharged tens of millions of dollars for the past decade due to the State’s failure to fully fund districts such as Robbinsville.
Additionally, the State of New Jersey has a 2% property tax levy cap that limits how much property taxes can go up each year, thereby making large yearly increases impossible without cutting other parts of the budget. If property taxes are the primary source of our Robbinsville school budget, and the annual property tax increase is capped by state law, then it means striking a balance between paying teachers and trying to avoid painful cuts to other parts of the school district budget that the community also values.
While the Board of Education’s goal is to provide sufficient resources for its students, we are also tasked with being considerate of the community at large ability to pay. We recommend and encourage the REA and anyone who is interested to reach out to the State of New Jersey Governor’s office and local legislative representatives to request our fair share of State Aid.
Notwithstanding these limiting factors, Robbinsville has the third-highest starting salary, consistently attracts high-quality teachers and educators, and is a magnet for parents that want the best educational experience for their children. We reject the false notion that teachers are leaving Robbinsville Schools more than other school districts throughout the state and nation. Based on Federal data eight percent of teachers leave the profession each year. When you consider that the same portion of educators shift schools, the overall annual turnover rate becomes 16% across the nation. Although nationally there has been an increase in teacher turnover, Robbinsville turnover rate in the last three years has been an average of 9% as well as increases in teachers who are deciding to pursue other professions, we believe strongly that Robbinsville is a highly sought-after place of employment.
We have a high response rate (24.5 applicants per week since May 1, 2022) to our job openings and teachers coming to Robbinsville to work from districts including Montgomery, Branchburg, Trenton, Hamilton, Jackson, Haddonfield, Haddon Township, Hopewell, East Brunswick, and South Brunswick.
Compared to neighboring school districts we often have a high fill rate for our openings and based on exit interviews we have conducted; salary has rarely been the main reason for teachers leaving.
We anticipate settling this contract – as all past negotiations have settled – but cannot help but acknowledge the damage that has and is being done by publicly portraying the Board, and thereby the Robbinsville Public School District, as an uncaring, dishonest, and unfair place to educate students. This is not a Board seeking to enrich shareholders at the expense of union workers. It is an unpaid volunteer Board of Robbinsville community parents and residents who care greatly about advancing the students and the community at large.
This volunteer Board has been charged with the careful and responsible management of public money and ensuring a school district is well run. The balance of paying the staff fairly and ensuring continued employment while simultaneously maintaining and offering new programs and opportunities for students is a difficult task that the Board shoulders year after year. We believe that this is the goal of the REA as well.
We are hopeful that reasonable minds prevail and that the upcoming mediation, at the REA’s request, can be a genuine opportunity for compromise with the outcome being a fair and reasonable contract that will benefit the staff, students, and school community. Then, rebuilding the relationship between the Board and REA can begin.
Robbinsville School Board Negotiations Committee
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Editor’s note: The district released the following update on its website on July 18: “At mediation this evening, the Robbinsville Public Schools Board Negotiations Committee unilaterally increased its offer which is in line with the Mercer County average. The Robbinsville Education Association (REA) countered at 4.9%, which is more than 1.5% higher than the County average.”
“While the Board is willing to continue to negotiate, the REA has not made realistic demands that would be possible without deep, painful cuts to staff and programming that would be to the detriment of our Robbinsville students. The Board is not willing to do that and will proceed to the process of fact finding where we believe a state fact finder will recommend a more reasonable settlement in line with the Mercer County average.”
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