ACHS teacher says 'unification is not the answer'

This letter is in regards to two headlines in the Jan. 28 Camarillo Acorn: "High school teachers reach contract settlement" and "PVSD negotiations still stalled."

Just reading these headlines tells you the conditions teachers operate under regarding salary issues with Oxnard Unified High School District and the Pleasant Valley School District.

PVSD teachers have had to appear before their school board meeting after meeting asking for fair wages while OUHSD teachers rely on a long ago agreed upon formula for salary increases.

Why would 100 high school teachers want to be a part of a new unified district that cannot meet the salary and benefit needs of 360 of its current teachers?

Some will say that a unified district gets more state funding than a K-8 district, and that is true, but it gets less than a union high school district. Ask yourselves how Adolfo Camarillo High School can exist on less money than it gets now should unification take place. The total state funding coming to a new district would have to be spread over K-12, not K-8.

Evan Masyr states in his Feb. 8 guest opinion, "Unification may solve district's budget woes," that unification would solve the salary issue for the PVSD teachers for the short term. What about the salaries of the 100 high school teachers who would be brought into the district if unification was to happen? In order to bring the PVSD teachers up to the salary level of the high school teachers, no raises could be given to the ACHS teachers for at least several years.

Our salaries determine our retirement funds. Would you put your retirement earnings on hold? Masyr also states there would be a new board for the new district. It is unlikely any of the new board will have had any experience running a high school or a unified school district, so they will be learning on the job. I don't think that is what Camarillo parents want.

There is also the question of the unfunded liability that must now be booked. OUHSD has put aside $30 million for this purpose. PVSD has put away nothing. What plans are there to assume the unfunded liability for the high school teachers when nothing has been done to date for the elementary teachers?

Unification would cost Camarillo taxpayers thousands of dollars because they would have to fund a portion of the new high school. As a taxpayer and ACHS teacher, I want OUHSD to pay for the new school as planned.

Unification is not the answer. Carol Evans Camarillo