APS bilingual teachers await stalled bonuses

The district has yet to decide which educators are worthy of the $2,500 rewards, part of a negotiation formulated with the union earlier this year.

Hundreds of city schoolteachers are waiting to receive $2,500 bonuses from Albuquerque Public Schools.

The district, which is feeling the effects of a major teacher shortage, negotiated the bonuses for bilingual teachers earlier this year with the Albuquerque Teachers Federation.

APS officials said they’ll shell out the money in the spring semester of 2001, after they’ve reviewed bilingual programs across the city.

The teachers union has issued fliers in schools explaining the holdup, and is pressuring the district to pay up already.

For the first time in recent memory, the district would pay hard-to-find teachers extra money as a way to attract them to work here. Teachers have traditionally been given raises according to seniority and education level only.

But the bonuses which were hailed as an innovative education strategy in May are apparently sitting in a bank account.

“They passed all of this, but they didn’t really plan ahead as to who was going to qualify,” said Sue Stagner, the bilingual department chair at Valley High School.

The district is conducting an audit to make sure the bonuses are given to teachers working in official district bilingual programs, said Gena Jones, the district’s director of human resources.

“We have to get into the school year to determine that,” Jones said. “And we have to examine the programs in the schools.”

District employees who are endorsed as bilingual specialists have already earned $500 bonuses, she said. But the big, and extra, bonus goes only to teachers who work in classrooms.

The first official student enrollment count on the 40th school day was recently completed. Jones said that count was needed to determine how many teachers deserved the bonus.

She also said teachers would see the money included into several paychecks over the semester, as opposed to one lump sum subject to higher taxes.

The bonuses would go to teachers who have bilingual endorsements on their teaching licenses, Stagner said.

“I do think it’s an excellent way to attract teachers to the field,” Stagner said. “But something needs to be decided.”

The teachers in her department are curious. But Stagner doesn’t know what to tell them.

“So the $2,500 is still floating in air, somewhere,” she said.

There were almost 19,000 students who received bilingual services from the district in the 1999-2000 school year. The total student population was about 84,260 last year.

The principal at East San Jose Elementary said the bonuses, called differentials in education terms, would ultimately benefit students around the city.

“It will attract the teachers who weren’t using their certificates . . . to go to schools where their services could be better used,” Principal Richard Baldonado said.

Stagner said she also teaches at the University of New Mexico, where education students are asking her how they can get the bonuses once they graduate.

“They’re already asking me, ‘Well, what is this? What do I have to do to get this E.S.L. or bilingual endorsement?'”



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