Quick Take
Middle school science teacher Christy Fairbairn loves her job and wants to stay in Santa Cruz County, but she and her husband, an ecologist, can’t afford the high rents. Too many fantastic teachers and staff, she writes, are leaving our community because of the high cost of living. To keep our schools thriving, she says teachers and school staff need workplace housing now.
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As a local teacher in Santa Cruz City Schools, I want to thank Lookout for publishing an article on workforce housing and the general struggles that educational staff face due to the high cost of living. The truth is, we cannot wait until at least 2027 for the possibility of rentals we can afford. Our community needs affordable rent for all school staff to keep our public schools thriving.
It’s important to our school communities and our educational staff to live where we work. What are we going to do when our educational staff can no longer afford to live here? What will happen to our public school system?
As most people know, the salaries of all staff in public schools are not high. For the 2023-24 school year, the starting salary for a teacher in Santa Cruz City Schools is $63,634, and it takes 13 years of teaching to make over $100,000. Essential classified staff, such as custodians, food-service workers, paraeducators, yard-duty monitors, campus safety officers, library media assistants and attendance clerks work hourly, and their pay ranges from $16.91 to $22.42 per hour.
The Santa Cruz community, our county and our state at large say they value education, but this is rarely reflected in our salaries.
We are losing many fantastic teachers and staff every year because of the high cost of living in our county. According to a Good Times article published in 2022, 95% of potential teachers declined jobs with Santa Cruz City Schools due to the high cost of living in our area. This is significant, especially if you consider the new teachers graduating from the credential program at UC Santa Cruz.
My husband and I both work jobs that provide services to our community. I teach science at Mission Hill Middle School and he is an ecologist at Central Coast Wilds, a nursery specializing in native plant restoration. The unfortunate reality is that our combined salary is lower than the salary of one person working in tech or other higher-paying fields.
For the past three years, we have lived with housemates to keep our housing costs low. However, it’s time for our own space. It’s well known that Santa Cruz County is among the most expensive rental markets in the nation. Prices have soared and requirements for renting have become more stringent. Many landlords in Santa Cruz require monthly income that is 2.5 to 3 times the monthly rent. This is not always feasible for my husband and me, nor for many of the educational staff in our county.
As my husband and I have been looking for housing, we’ve had a challenging time finding something that fits our budget and our needs. Ideally, we’d be able to find a rental that is no more than $2,600 per month. Our biggest need is safe storage for our bikes, as that’s our main mode of transportation. We’ve found few units that can accommodate this within our price range. We’ve also run into landlords who turn us down because they are skeptical of our ability to pay rent given our income.
While I could have a larger salary working for a school district over the hill, I would not be a part of my school’s community and I would not be able to commute by bike, two things that are important to me. I know teachers who have taken jobs elsewhere due to the cost of living, including teachers who move out of the state.
If good teachers and educational staff are forced to leave, it erodes the school community because the health of a school is influenced by the community of staff at the school. With high staff turnover, that community erodes and impacts the education of our students. The veteran staff at my school form the foundation our community is built on.
We don’t want to leave our schools or our friends and family in the area. Many of us have deep roots that go back for decades. Santa Cruz County is our home.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that for the sake of all communities in Santa Cruz County and others with a high cost of living, we need to take more rapid action to ensure our local public schools can retain the staff that we have. If we wait, it might be too late.
Thanks to my seventh grade students who have reached out to staff and local organizations to see what they can do about climate and environmental problems they have seen at our school. They inspired me to write this op-ed.
Christy Fairbairn has worked in education for 10 years and teaches science at Mission Hill Middle School. She and her husband have lived in Santa Cruz for six years.