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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Website’s claim that Coeur d’Alene teachers worst-paid in U.S. isn’t quite right

Dave Oliveria (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

The claim by a national online site was startling, depressing. High school teachers in the Coeur d’Alene School District average the worst pay in the United States. Numero uno out of 75 mini-profiled. In a Nov. 30 story by Alex Greer, “The Worst-Paying Cities for High School Teachers,” Career Trends by Graphiq lists the average high school teacher salary in Coeur d’Alene as $36,470 – or 50.79 percent below the national average. But Coeur d’Alene School District spokeswoman Laura Rumpler responds, hogwash. In fact, she tells Huckleberries, the average salary used by Career Trends is more than $9,000 low. The real average salary for district high school teachers, she continues, is $45,668. Rumpler tells Huckleberries: “Granted, we would like to see that average salary higher for not only our high school teachers but all our educators, (but) it surely is a much more accurate snapshot of average salary than the $36,470 floating around.” Laura is asking Career Trends to correct the mistake. Are you holding your breath?

Still low on totem pole

For Those Keeping Score At Home: The district’s stated average high school teacher’s salary of $47,668 wouldn’t get it off Career Trends Top 75 worst-paying list. But it would drop the district back to 33rd place, about 29 percent below the national average, just behind Lawton, Oklahoma (45,570) … Other Idaho cities on the Career Trends list are: No. 17 Idaho Falls, No. 28 Boise City and No. 52 Lewiston … And the new No. 1 Worst Paying City for High School Teachers would be (drum roll, puh-LEEZ) – former No. 2 Logan, Utah. At an average of $39,240, Logan is 43.88 percent below the national average, according to Career Trends. IF those numbers are correct. Big if.

Huckleberries

Huckleberries’d like to know the back story on that orange bucket hanging on a 4-by-4 pole, spotted by Marianne Love/Slight Detour blog on her way to eat homemade goodies at the Pack River General Store Tuesday. Hand-written on the side: “Dog poop only, please.” Mother Nature – or was it Frosty the Snowman? – had already dumped a load of snow into it … “So,” asks Councilwoman Kerri Thoreson of Post Falls, “if I leave my phone at home and now want to call my husband (from a land line) but can’t for the life of me remember his phone number, does that make me a bad wife?” Let she with photographic memory throw the first cellphone … Huckleberries left out one important fact out of the Wednesday report re: the six polar bears who took their own plunge off West Lakeshore Drive New Year’s Day. Attorney Denny Davis, whose home served as the staging area for the maverick plungers, suh-wears no alcohol was involved for fortifying purposes before the frigid dip in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Different story afterward.

Parting Shot

Yes, the Idaho Virtual Academy really did send out an email this week telling students how lucky they were not to have their education interrupted by snow days. The email, sent to a Huckleberry Friend from Coeur d’Alene, compared the academy to the U.S. Postal Service, which allegedly isn’t stopped by “snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night.” And exclaimed: “Your education does not stop for these stated reasons either. You have the advantage!” And all the kids enrolled in the statewide Virtual Academy responded with … yay?