We hope you agree that PT teachers are more valuable than Dr. Engle's "Apple's".

By signing this petition we encourage PTSD School Board to negotiate fairly and increase our teachers TRI days to not less than 25 per school year.

"I'm compelled to write a clarification for PDN's cover story on Teacher pay from Wednesday, May 25th.

PTSD Superintendent David Engle is correct that Charlie's Bermant's article discussing Port Townsend teacher salaries in the PDN is not "apples to apples." The numbers Charlie used are average teacher salaries in Bremerton and Port Townsend not TRI Days, or Time, Responsibility, Incentive time above and beyond our contracted time. TRI time is pay teachers receive for partial compensation for work they are already doing to develop, maintain, and enrich student programs. To put it in days, Bremerton School District Teachers have 24.5 Days of TRI (and are currently negotiating for more.) Port Townsend has 11 days and the difference amounts to thousands of dollars a year. Additionally, the cost of living in Port Townsend is significantly higher than in Bremerton, so Dr. Engle is right, it is not "apples to apples," it is even worse than it sounds. This is the compensation gap our community gathered around with such enthusiasm to close. Our negotiation team cannot directly talk to the school board during a negotiation, nor can they even discuss specifics yet with our members. Therefore, our community came together beautifully to make sure the Port Townsend School District Board heard our concerns. Thanks to all District Staff, Board and mostly the Port Townsend community for such energy and support. - by Chris Pierson - Port Townsend Education Association, President"