Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for March 30, 2009 IT'S A CRIME

One reference in the article below prompted my selection this morning...

Andrea Banach compares teaching in prison to teaching in high school:

"This is less brutal. I don't have to break up fights. Security does that. I can focus on educating."

Instructors say salaries have remained static too long

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE SOUTHERN

PINCKNEYVILLE - It's not the salary or perks, if any, that propel Andrea Banach or William "Brad" Slankard to teach vocational skills to inmates at Pinckneyville Correctional Center.

They love their respective jobs and are motivated by the possibilities of turning lives around for the better.

But they have concerns about their pay - salary amounts that have remained at the same level for too long, they say.

"I think they've given maybe one raise in the last six years," Slankard said, quickly adding why he's willing to overlook that fact. "Hopefully, I can help these guys change their lives around," said the construction occupations instructor.

Food service instructor Murray Alford, who has been at it for six years at PCC, talked about the job he works four days a week for 10-hour shifts. There are no spring, holiday or summer breaks.

"When I applied for the job, I knew what the salary was. I've had one raise," he said.

But, like Banach and Slankard, it isn't for the salary or perks that he chooses to do what he does.

"I want to see results, knowing I can make an impact every day," Alford said.

Banach said in addition to helping inmates turn their lives around as she works to coordinate the vocational educational programs at Pinckneyville Correctional Center, there are some distinct advantages she couldn't have when she taught high school math earlier in her career.

"This is less brutal. I don't have to break up fights. Security does that. I can focus on educating," Banach said.

She said as a high school teacher, she saw gun and knife incidents. There were student suicides. Teachers have to be well versed and know how to handle adolescent behavior when they teach at the high school level.

"Kids tug at my heart strings. These guys are adults. I can relate to them," Banach said.

David Holshouser, a vocational electronics instructor at Centralia Correctional Center, is a little more vocal about what he describes as "the lack of compensation for the vocational correctional instructors" throughout the state.

"Every person I know in a DOC (Department of Corrections) capacity is getting raises except us," Holshouser said.

He's written letters to all state representatives and senators who have a DOC facility in their district and has received a single reply.

Holshouser questions the contractual negotiations and stipulations between the community colleges and the DOC, a process he said weighs too much with the DOC to monitor instructor hiring procedures and wages.

"DOC manages the money in the contract. DOC sets the hiring practices," Holshouser said.

Derek Schnapp, a DOC spokesperson, confirmed Holshouser's point that the DOC individually contracts with each college to provide vocational courses to correctional centers.

He said state financial constraints have affected the DOC like other state institutions the last few years. The DOC has managed to offer stipends or bonuses for some positions.

"Yes, it's true. There have not been raises for vocational instructors. It's a valid concern. We count on these people. They are valuable resources and we are lucky to have them," Schnapp said.