Dottie Schaffer is not just an elementary academic and behavioral intervention specialist at Steelton-Highspire School District. She’s also a waitress.

Her second job requires her to wait on tables at the Millworks in Harrisburg for a six-hour shift from one to five nights a week, whenever shifts are available on weeknights or weekends.

Her students know it because she often has to tell them she can’t stay after school to tutor them because she has to get to her other job. She also doesn’t have time to do as much research as she’d like to do to be better at her job because “I’m tired. But I’m not allowed to be tired. You can’t be tired.”

She’d prefer not to have to hold down a second job but she has to make ends meet.

She is in the same boat as about 3,100 other educators across the state who make less than $45,000 a year. She came to the Capitol on Tuesday along with dozens of other educators to call on lawmakers to support to Gov. Tom Wolf’s call to raise the state’s $18,500 minimum teacher salary to the $45,000.

Schaffer is in her third year at Steelton-Highspire and makes about $40,800. What she thinks people don’t understand when it comes to education is that teachers are required to have college degrees and then after five years in the profession, must earn 24 post-baccalaureate credits in order to maintain their teacher certification.

“So on top of the student debtload we already have to get our bachelor’s, we’re required to go get more schooling,” she said. “A lot of us work two jobs in order to make ends meet.”

A bi-partisan band of lawmakers are saying it is time to more fairly compensate teachers. The state last raised its minimum teacher salary 31 years ago.

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Judy Schwank, D-Berks County, in the Senate and Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-Luzerne County, in the House would have the state pick up the $13.8 million tab to cover the cost of the salaries and associated pension, Social Security and Medicare costs to raise salaries of teachers earning less than the $45,000 to that level.

They pointed out not only are teachers working two and three jobs but also are using their own money to buy supplies for their classrooms. This is causing some to leave the profession or move from lower-paying school districts to ones that pay more.

Sen. Judy Schwank, D-Berks County, shown here at Tuesday's news conference surrounded by dozens of educators and state Reps. Tarah Toohil, R-Luzerne County, and Kyle Mullins, D-Lackawanna County, is advocating for raising the minimum teacher salary to $45,000.

“We all should have a personal interest in this proposal. Research has shown student achievement increases when teacher turnover is reduced. Our future depends on a well-educated populace,” said Schwank, a former teacher.

In 2017, a statewide median salary of a Pennsylvanian with a bachelor’s degree was $47,000. Toohil said it’s time that teachers’ pay is brought up to the level that similarly educated professionals receive, particularly given the many challenges teachers face today, she said.

“Given the absolute crucial role teachers play in the lives of our students, our Pennsylvania students, they should not have to scrape by to make ends meet,” Toohil said.

Joining the bill sponsors at the news conference was Rep. Kyle Mullins, D-Lackawanna County, who pointed out that the state is facing a teacher shortage “and low wages are major contributing factor.”

Between 2009 and 2016, the state saw nearly a 70 percent decline in the number of teachers requesting licensure, he said. What’s more, the number of requests for emergency teacher certifications to allow teachers to teach outside the area in which they are certified to teach is on the rise. There were 3,016 requests last year, 2,800 the year before and 1,900 in 2015-16, he said.

Pennsylvania State Education Association President Rich Askey said the higher minimum salary proposal has broad support among likely voters.

A poll conducted by Harper Polling for the teachers union found that 66 percent of the 600 voters surveyed favored increasing the minimum teacher salary to $45,000 with 29 percent opposing it. Of that 66 percent, he said nearly 50 percent strongly favored the proposal.

Askey further pointed out that the 3,100 teachers earning below $45,000 are not fresh out of college. About half of them have more than three years of experience and an average age of 33. Most of them are women and many carry significant student debt.

Clairton City School District fifth-grade math teacher Stacie Baur offered herself as an example of that.

Despite having nearly 10 years of teaching experience, she is making $43,000 and half of each month’s pay goes toward paying down her $130,000 student loan debt. To help her and her husband get by, she supplements her income by teaching English to Chinese students online.

More fairly compensating teachers will keep teachers in the classroom and allow them to focus on their students to learn and grow, instead of trying to hold down a second or third job, Askey said.

Responding to the criticism that some lawmakers have voiced about that the proposal having a ripple effect that will lead to higher teacher pay in districts’ next round of contract talks, Schwank said history didn’t show that to be the case.

In the four years before the minimum teacher salary was set in 1988-89, the average teacher pay rose 3.1 percent and in the four years after it took effect, it only rose 2.8 percent.

“It doesn’t necessarily follow that everything in terms of salaries is going to ratchet up because of this modest proposal to try to raise the minimum teacher salary,” Schwank said.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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