Through its Keeping Quality Teachers Where They Count campaign, Wissahickon Charter will enhance faculty salaries by a
minimum of 10% at each range of experience to help close its pay gap with the School District, and maintain and expand its committed teaching corps. Long-term, this campaign will enable the school to reduce its current student-teacher ratio (25:1) and strengthen its collaborative learning model.
Wissahickon Charter's committed and creative faculty is the driving force behind student achievement. Teachers develop standards-based curricula tailored to individual class needs and their own strengths. Staff collaborate regularly to integrate environmental and other thematic units across diverse disciplines. This approach yields a reinforced curriculum that is lively, rigorous, and supportive to student learning.
Educators extol Wissahickon Charter's safe and professionally supportive environment, which has attracted exemplary faculty. Yet, due to current facility expenses and limited resources, the school cannot compensate staff with salaries and pay increases comparable to the School District or suburban schools. Wissahickon Charter operates on only 80% of the per-pupil allocation the School District receives. New teachers begin with an 8% smaller salary than the District's; this gap rises per each year of experience to reach 26% by year nine. Teachers who remain at Wissahickon Charter thus make a considerable
economic sacrifice to do so, or are forced to seek employment elsewhere. This one-time funding campaign will enable the school to offset facility expenses and provide permanent salary enhancements for all of its excellent faculty.