‘I cannot afford to live where I work': The top issue for school teachers in South Florida

Gina Pineda is a lot like most teachers, she is a teacher because she loves it.

“Oh, always the kids, it’s always the kids,” Pineda said. “I mean, you can ask any educator.”

But she says it’s a struggle to stretch her salary to continue living in South Florida.

And that was what we heard from most of the nearly 1,000 Miami-Dade and Broward public school teachers who participated in our annual NBC 6/Telemundo 51 teacher survey. 

“We rent, we don’t own. We have one car,” said Gina Pineda, a veteran teacher at Wilton Manors Elementary School.

After 22 years here, she and her husband are thinking of leaving Florida after their daughter graduates from high school.

“I know that I’ll never be able to buy a home in Broward County when I’ve been here so long, that’s just hard to justify, it’s hard to continue on,” Pineda said. 

In our survey, 98% said they’re concerned about keeping up with the cost of living, and 77% have considered leaving the profession.

“Teachers should not have to ask for extra classes, we should not have to take on extra activities to supplement our income,” said Erica Hansinger, who teaches at Western High School in Davie. 

But nearly all teachers do take on extra gigs. They tutor, they coach, they teach night school, and more. 

“In the 34 years, I have worked every summer,” said Michael Floyd, who teaches at Jan Mann Educational Center, an alternative high school.

He loves the satisfaction of getting wayward kids on the right track but says the salary doesn’t match the work.

“We should be satisfied to know that we have a place to stay, that we can feed our families and not be stressed out, not how are we going to do that on a week-to-week, month-to-month basis,” Floyd said, adding that many teachers work paycheck to paycheck.

These are just a few of the comments teachers left in the survey:

“Will I have to move to another state in order to support my family without working two or three jobs?”

“The district needs to raise salaries so we can continue in this profession.”

“I cannot afford to live where I work.”

“Shame on the school board and the legislature.”

“I have a master's degree and my base salary is not even $54,000.”

“So many teachers, including teachers teaching for more than a decade, have to take more than one job, side jobs, just to pay for rent, for transportation to school to teach the community’s children,” said Natan Samuels, a teacher at Jose Marti MAST Academy.

The average teacher salary in Florida in $53,000, which is the second lowest in the nation, according to the National Education Association.

“And again, it’d be different if our housing costs were comparable, if our housing ranked in the lowest in the nation, but it doesn’t,” Pineda said. 

In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, rookie teachers start at $49,500, but with the bonus from the voter-approved referendum, they make $52,470. 

A 20-year veteran teacher takes home a total of just over $64,000.

“In Miami, we are a perennially A-rated school district, we should be getting raises,” Floyd said. 

In Broward County Public Schools, a first-year teacher base salary is $50,266 plus $500 from a similar voter-approved referendum makes it $50,766. 

A 20-year veteran makes $68,235, which includes $12,000 from the referendum. 

“It is very important that we are given a working salary and compensation in order for us to support our families comfortably,” Hansinger said. 

Several teachers in our survey said low salaries are the main reason there’s a teacher shortage, and why, they say, fewer young people are joining the profession. All of them expressed gratitude to the public for voting to support teachers with their tax dollars.