Wages

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As more was demanded of teachers, pay and the cost of instruction, became an issue. The Middleborough School Committee acknowledged that Middleborough teachers were paid below the state average and argued for increased appropriations in order to secure qualified teachers. (The salary for teachers, including Lura Sawin at the Green School, teaching all three terms in 1876-77 was $280. Later, in the 1880s, salaries were about $320-340).

One-room schools like the Green were also at a disadvantage since teachers there were paid the same salaries as teachers in the graded schools at Middleborough Center who had what was thought an easier task as they taught one level only, rather than mixed levels. This led to the recognition that “it will be difficult to keep good teachers in district schools, when they can get the same pay in a village school with only one class to teach”.

Quickly, however, a disparity developed between the salaries of central school teachers (who were regarded as more qualified and generally had a number of years of practical teaching experience behind them) and those in mixed grade schools. Superintendent Bates felt this pay differential unwarranted, given the demands made upon this latter group. “To fill acceptably a suburban teacher’s position requires a greater ability as an instructor and disciplinarian, a wider knowledge of studies, a greater amount of time for preparation than in a central position. In justice to the teacher her salary should be regulated by the responsibility and requirements of the position.”

In 1892, the Middleborough School Committee recognized that “the salaries paid are inadequate to retain the services of our best teachers” and urged that additional funds be appropriated. This would prove a long-standing recommendation. The Superintendent’s report of 1899 points to the failure to pay competitive salaries as a reason the town was losing qualified teachers. In 1904, the average female teacher’s monthly salary in Massachusetts was $55.37 while that of Middleborough’s female teachers was just $43.12, a considerable difference. By 1910, while the state average had risen to $59.58, Middleborough’s had in fact dropped to $42.06. Throughout the period, Superintendent Bates called for increased appropriations earmarked for salary increases in order to bring them more in line with the county and state averages, and in 1910 provided a battery of documentation in support of his request.

In 1911, voters finally responded and $671.43 was appropriated for increases in the salaries of teachers in the largest suburban schools, including Mary E. Deane at the Green. Over the course of the subsequent years, suburban school salaries did increase, the Green rising from $380.00 in 1906 to $494 in 1914. “The policy of the School Board in raising the salaries of the suburban school teachers, by which action they are now on the same level as the salaries paid by the teachers of the Central Elementary schools, has had the result of retaining the services of many of these teachers who otherwise would have sought employment elsewhere…. The same salary is now paid to every teacher with the exception of the teacher at the Green who receives a larger wage owing to a longer school day.” Perhaps not surprisingly, male teachers were paid at a higher rate than women. When C. Harold Striley replaced Mabel Stearns as the Green School teacher for the 1914-15 academic year, he received $76 more in pay to do the work that Stearns had done.

In June 1916 a further revision in the salaries of female teachers was made and those having served ore than three years would receive $550 annual wages for teaching in suburban schools. Yet despite the earlier rhetoric concerning the challenges of the suburban school teacher in comparison to her central school counterpart, central school teachers were to be paid $50 more. [1916:28] The steady growth in Middleborough teacher salaries during this period notwithstanding, average rates of pay for Middleborough teachers still fell below what their counterparts were making throughout the remainder of the county and the state. In 1919, Superintendent Bates recommended “that salaries of the teachers be increased $300 each.” Even after salaries were raised to $1,000, Bates still contended that the minimum base salary for grade school teachers should be $1,200. Somewhat surprisingly, the increase was made and in 1921, Mary Burke at the Green was being paid $1,200. Another welcome change at the time was the frequency of pay. Teachers were paid once monthly until October, 1917, when the School Committee voted to pay twice monthly.

Bates could be well satisfied with the results which had dramatically increased teacher pay and correspondingly retention rates and, most importantly, the level of instruction in the suburban schools. “It is a great advance from placing these schools in charge of inexperienced teachers at $7 a week, or $266 a year, as was done 20 years ago, to securing trained and experienced teachers at $1,200 a year. And the work of these schools attests to the work of the trained teachers.”

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