Teachers in the D.C. area are unlikely to see a raise next fall for the second year in a row, raising concerns about their ability to live in pricey school districts.
In Montgomery County, about 69 percent of the district’s teachers live in the county where they work. In Fairfax County, the figure rises slightly to 72 percent.
Teachers’ long commutes
A Montgomery County Public Schools report keeps track of the lengths to which employees travel for a job in the system.
“A good percentage of those teachers have been in the system for a while, and were able to buy houses before the boom,” said Doug Prouty, president of Montgomery’s teachers union. “The biggest problem now is younger teachers who are looking to buy.” In Montgomery, the median value of owner-occupied housing is nearly $222,000, according to the most recent census data. In Fairfax, the median home value is more than $233,000.
Median income for both counties is about $100,000, more than double the starting teacher salary of $44,000 in Fairfax and $46,000 in Montgomery.
In the much smaller districts of Arlington County and Alexandria, only about half of the teachers reside within the districts, according to school officials. Median household income in the two areas is slightly lower than in Fairfax and Montgomery, but the median home prices are higher than $250,000.
In each of the districts, teacher raises are all but erased from next year’s budgets in an effort to tackle unprecedented funding shortfalls. In Montgomery, union negotiations are ongoing, but county council members have expressed doubts that raises would be funded.
Prouty urged Montgomery officials to promote real estate development inclusive of work force housing, an idea echoed by Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff McKay.
“We have a significant amount of housing for the least fortunate in our community, but the piece that’s always missing is the work force housing component,” McKay said.
Young teachers, government employees and those in the service sector “are caught in the gap” between making too little money to buy a home in Fairfax and too much to qualify for low-income housing. “At some point in time, there is huge economic benefit to us for providing more affordable housing for the people in that category,” McKay said.
