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'TRI Pay' Could Be Sticking Point In School Funding Debate

Elaine Thompson
/
AP Photo
D'onna Hartman smiles as she works with children at the Creative Kids Learning Center, a school that focuses on pre-kindergarten for 4- and 5-year-olds, in Seattle.

Lawmakers in Olympia are spending this year’s legislative session coming up with a plan to fund basic education throughout the state. One big sticking point during the discussions has been teacher salaries and who should be responsible for paying them.

There are also questions surrounding something known as “TRI pay.” It stands for “time, responsibility and incentive,” and is similar to overtime pay.

Seattle Times education reporter Neal Morton has been investigating why it exists, and as he tells 88.5’s Ariel Van Cleave the additional pay might slow down the process for coming up with a funding plan.

You can find more details about TRI pay in Morton’s story on the Seattle Times Education Lab site.

Ariel first entered a public radio newsroom in 2004 while in school at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. It was love at first sight. After graduating from Bradley, she went on to earn a Master's degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield. Ariel has lived in Indiana, Ohio and Alaska reporting on everything from salmon spawning to policy issues concerning education. She's been a host, a manager and now rides shotgun with Kirsten Kendrick as the Morning Edition producer at KNKX.