Woman Gives $1 Million to 100 Poorly Paid Teachers
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More than 100 teachers, counselors, and advisers from Ross Valley School District in Marin County, California, were summoned to a surprise meeting. Nobody knew why.
Marin is one of the highest-income counties in America by per capita income and median household income, and sits across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Despite this, and despite sky-high property values, Ross Valley sits in the bottom 20th percentile for state school funding. When philanthropically-minded local resident found out that her local schools were at the bottom end for state pay for teachers, she decided to step in to make the difference.
So, Maja Kristin asked the Ross Valley School District to organize a meeting of 100 teachers from their K-8 schools, with the special instruction that they weren’t to know what the reason was. Gathered in a conference room earlier this month, Kristin explained she had discovered that its teachers were the paid the least of any peer group in the wealthy Marin County.
In order to make up the difference, Kristin handed out envelopes which the teachers were instructed to open. “We as citizens, we can write direct checks,” Kristin told the assembly who discovered exactly that - paid to their order - each worth $9,161.70.
“I was astounded. I’ve seen lots of very generous giving over my 20-year career, but this is something I have never seen,” Superintendent Tyler Graff told The San Francisco Standard. “This solves a bit of the inequity in that it gets our teachers more pay.”
Kristin, who grew up in San Francisco public housing, became a lawyer and has made several major gifts to local and national nonprofits.
