St. Joseph the Worker Catholic School in Trenton, New Jersey is committed to providing quality education. And they know such quality begins with the teachers.
That is why the principal, Greg Rand, says he only hires the best educators $70 a day can buy.
“We tell the kids all the time that SJW school is about two things: excellence and generosity,” Mr. Rand said. “In that spirit we’ve raised our teacher’s salaries to almost $9 an hour.”
St. Joseph the Worker was already known among Catholic schools for its unprecedented $7.90 an hour former pay scale. But Mr. Rand said that they were not content to just rest on their laurels, but were always looking for ways to improve the relationships with staff and students.
“There were some parents who complained when I said we had to raise tuition by $12,000 a year to compensate for the raise, but I told them we had to do what was right,” he remembered.
The vice principal, Alicia Goldsmith, said there were calls for an even greater pay increase, but that the administration felt such teachers were asking too much.
“If we paid them any more, they’d lose that Catholic love of poverty and wouldn’t be as good of role models for their students,” she explained. “So we had no choice but to let them go.”
The pay raises would not apply universally, however.
“I should specify that $26,000 annual salaries only apply to the science and mathematics teachers–obviously,” Mr. Rand noted.
He smiled before continuing. “You should’ve seen our theology teacher Dr. Greybul come in here the other day all in a huff when his paycheck didn’t change. He was all like, ‘please Greg, I have twenty years of experience, I have ten kids, $12,000 a year isn’t fair,’ yadda yadda yadda.”
“It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t so clueless,” Mr. Rand went on. “I mean, it’s just theology.”
