Teachers and staff at GRPS urge higher pay, better healthcare and faster hiring; district hears multiple public comments

Several Grand Rapids Public Schools employees and union leaders used public comment at the March 3 board meeting to press the district on compensation, benefits and staffing, describing rising insurance costs, slow hiring and classroom overcrowding.

“7.5% means I'm valued and appreciated for the work I do,” said Mariah Welch, a seventh- and eighth-grade English teacher at C.A. Frost. Welch told the board that a 7.5% raise would cover this year’s health-insurance increase and allow her to manage housing, loans and family expenses. She said GRPS pays less than other Kent County districts and that pay and benefit trends had left her financially strained.

Other teachers described rising employee health-care costs. Wendy Winston said her per-pay-period health-insurance deduction rose from $58.83 in 2022 to $157 currently; she described higher deductibles, coinsurance and copays and said “any increases in compensation have been negated by increased insurance premiums.” Donna West, a second-year teacher who worked for the district as a substitute since 2017, said her take-home pay declined because of benefit changes.

Hiring timelines and classroom workload

Teachers and staff also described protracted hiring timelines and heavy classroom loads. Julie McBride, a classroom teacher, said some positions remained open for months: “we finally are fully staffed in our building. But we've had somebody looking at a position since September that took till January to get hired,” she said, tying staffing delays to workload and social-emotional concerns in classrooms. A Grand Rapids Montessori staff member, Seilyn Turan, described multi-year turnover in her school and said missing specialists and repeated staff departures had harmed consistency for students.

Field trips, planning time and contract enforcement

Jolene Andrews, a teacher at Southwest Elementary, asked the district to enforce contract language on duty-free breaks and duty-free lunch. “The contract states each elementary teacher should have a duty free break not to exceed 15 minutes each morning and afternoon,” she read to the board. Andrews said a field trip led her team to miss breaks and lunches and that Human Resources denied a colleague’s compensation request for missed break time. She requested clearer, faster resolution for compensation claims tied to contract provisions; she cited specified compensation amounts of $6.25 for a missed break and $16.75 for a missed lunch.

Union and community budget concerns

Matt Marlowe, president of the Grand Rapids Education Association (GREA), also spoke during public comment to review district revenue and expenditure trends from 2017 through 2024 and asked how the district plans to sustain spending after ESSER funds and other one-time sources wind down. He described several years of deficit spending followed by surpluses in recent years and asked whether the district's current spending level is sustainable.

Board response and context

Trustees acknowledged the comments and thanked speakers for bringing personal accounts to the meeting. Several trustees said they heard the concerns and noted the district is working on recruitment and retention. No board action was taken on personnel compensation at the meeting; formal negotiations and budgeting processes were referenced but not resolved during public comment.

What was not decided

Speakers called for higher pay and benefit adjustments and for faster hiring; the board did not vote on raises or policy changes at this meeting. Trustees indicated the topics will remain part of negotiations, budget discussions and personnel planning.

Speakers

Speakers included GREA president Matt Marlowe and teachers Mariah Welch, Wendy Winston, Donna West, Julie McBride and Jolene Andrews; other commenters described turnover and staffing problems at individual schools.