The high cost of living in the Bay Area has made it difficult for teachers to afford to live in the area where they work.
In fact, with the median home price running at least $1.5 million in the San Ramon Valley, many teachers are forced to live quite a distance from Cal High and endure a brutal daily commute to campus.
Statistics teacher Bob Allen lives 33 miles from Cal in Tracy and averages a 45- to 60-minute commute to and from school each day.
Allen and his partner chose to buy a new house which made it impossible for him to live in San Ramon Valley Unified School District (SRVUSD) attendance boundaries, which includes San Ramon, Danville and Alamo. They chose Tracy because of factors such the salary verses the price of housing difference and housing options.
“If you’re [a teacher], especially a new teacher, it’s impossible to live in San Ramon,” Allen said.
This concern is viewed by many as one of the contributing factors of the state’s teacher shortage, especially in expensive areas such as the Bay Area.
In California, there are more than 10,000 teacher vacancies, including positions filled by people who do not hold credentials, for the current school year, according to the State’s Department of Education
Cal Principal Demetrius Ball believes that teachers aren’t compensated properly for their work.
“The time teachers have to invest is real,” Ball said. “I’ve got friends that are in the private sector and they don’t work half as hard as educators do, but they make three times as much.”
The Californian conducted a survey of teachers and staff asking how far they live from campus. In the survey, 39 out of the 85 teachers and staff who responded, or 45.9 percent, indicated they live outside the district. Of these 39 teachers and staff, 23, or nearly 60 percent, indicated it was because of the cost of housing in the area.
“I was not able to afford to buy a house with my husband within the district,” chemistry teacher Debbie Smith said. “We bought [a house] in 2013, when I had been in the district eight years. Even now, after 20 years in the district, I could not afford to buy a home here.”
Smith believes the starting teacher salaries in the district are nowhere nearly enough to purchase a house close to campus. She added that there might be cheaper houses in the Bay Area but they usually require a long commute from the school.
A teacher’s salary can range from $61,257 to $116,462 depending on course credits, degrees, and their years of experience, according to the SRVUSD credentialed teachers’ salary schedule published on the district’s website.
With the cost of living in San Ramon being 90 percent higher than the national average, the median home price is $1.5 million, while the median cost to rent in the city is $4,400 a month. These current real estate prices can prove to be a difficult match with most teachers’ salaries.
History teacher Alexander Geller, who lives 3.3 miles from Cal, believes that the salaries teachers receive are not sufficient enough to live comfortably in the Bay Area.
“The average rent for a house with three bedrooms is upwards of $4,500 to rent and over a million to buy,” Geller said. “So I am actually looking to move to Livermore, Pleasanton or Dublin where rent is more affordable.”
But he noted that by doing this, he will have a much longer commute.
The average commute length for Cal teachers is approximately 10.6 miles and 19 minutes, according to The Californian’s survey.
Cal’s equity liaison Trisha Gonzales-Waters, who is responsible for analyzing and interpreting equity data, lives 40 miles from campus in Antioch. But Waters still chose to work at Cal because she said the school district considers all of her years of experience on the pay scale, meaning she earns a higher salary here than she might elsewhere if she transferred schools.
“This is the only district that honors my total years of service and offers full medical benefits,” Waters said.
In the last year, there have been major improvements regarding teachers’ salaries to attract more people to the district. Last year’s contract between teachers and the district made sure of that.
Teachers with more than five years experience in another school district now are finally allowed to have all of their years of service transfer on the new salary schedule when they are hired in the district.
Previously, if a teacher moved districts, SRVUSD would only honor seven years of teaching experience on the pay scale. Now, the gap has been removed and teachers’ salary schedules will reflect their years of experience.
“Our union fought to bring more veteran teachers by paying them for their years. I think it has helped with attracting teachers,” theater teacher Laura Woods said. “For example, [before the change] if I wanted to leave SRVUSD and move to Dublin, my salary would be significantly less because they’d pay me for seven years even though I’ve been teaching for 27.”
For some like English teacher Eghosa Obaizamomwan Hamilton, there are multiple reasons to live outside San Ramon. Hamilton lives 30 miles from the campus in West Oakland.
“I live out there, one, because that’s where I first had housing, so I just kind of stuck with that,” said Hamilton, who has lived in Oakland since 2012. “Two, I find, as a person of color, [I’m] more comfortable in that space. Three, San Ramon is well beyond my income range if I wanted to own a house.”
Hamilton also believes there is a lack of support for new teachers, especially teachers with children.
AP Computer Science Principles teacher Sean Raser moved closer to Cal from Castro Valley because he wanted his son to be in the same school district.
“The cost of living in the Bay Area and trying to survive off of just a teacher’s salary would not be possible,” Raser said. “It would barely be enough to cover rent or mortgage, and wouldn’t even cover other essential expenses. My wife has to work full time in order for us to be able to live here with me as a teacher.”
Raser believes lower salaries make it hard to attract new teachers, especially ones coming straight out of college with high debt and student loans.
Many people acknowledge that newer teachers are unable to be financially independent because of the low starting salaries compared to the cost of living in the area.
English teacher Alexis Fernando, who has worked as a teacher for three years, said she is in a relatively privileged living situation because she lives with roommates, which allows her to be less concerned about rent. But she still aspires to move out.
“I’ve been looking at my finances, and it’s quite unrealistic for me [to move out] at the moment,” Fernando said. “Because Dublin is also up there in terms of price, I was looking at [houses to rent in] Castro Valley and Livermore. I want to stay in the surrounding cities.”
