Priced Out Of The School District -- Many Teachers Can't Afford Eastside House

With a master's degree and four years' experience, Kirkland teacher Liz Davies moved into the best neighborhood she could afford - 37 miles to the north in Lake Stevens.

The mortgage on her $128,000 house consumes half of her take-home pay, and she still has to drive as much as three hours a day.

Each weekday morning, she leaves home at 6:15 a.m. and listens to classical music and news or meditates on her drive to Sandburg Elementary School in Kirkland.

"I've seen road rage," Davies says. "It's extremely scary. People honking, right on your tail. This lady wouldn't let me in. She sped up, flipped me off, honked and played games with the brakes."

After classes, Davies waits.

"What I do at school is wait until the traffic's gone," she says. "Three or four days a week, I just stay and tutor."

On other nights, she'll visit relatives or exercise at a gym until rush hour ends, arriving home at 8 p.m.

Like Davies, many other Eastside teachers can't afford houses on the Eastside.

In the Lake Washington School District, where Davies works, only 30 percent of new teachers in the 1996-97 school year moved to the district, down from 45 percent six years earlier. The trend is likely to continue as older teachers retire and are replaced by younger teachers making less money.

A typical Lake Washington teacher, one earning about $43,000 a year, can qualify for a $175,000 home with a 10 percent down payment. However, as of a month ago, just 31 single-family homes priced at $175,000 or less were for sale in the 75-square-mile district. And a rookie teacher makes only about $25,000.

On the Eastside, the median price of a typical single-family home was $279,624 in May, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. (The Eastside figures include a portion of Southeast Snohomish County.)

The median price in Seattle was $217,400.

Washington teachers' pay dropped 1.7 percent between 1980 and 1996 when adjusted for the national inflation rate. At $38,933, it ranked 16th of the 50 states and District of Columbia, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Seattle schools also are feeling the effect of rising housing costs. Spokesman Trevor Neilson says his district faces a "people crisis" because of a shortage of applicants. Some schools have lost teachers because of home prices or higher pay outside education.

The effects reach beyond real-estate markets.

On Jan. 12, a "snow day" when most schools opened late, Mercer Island schools closed because traffic snarls kept teachers from reaching the island. Only one-fifth of Mercer Island teachers live there.

In Issaquah, where a third of the teachers live in the district, an $8.9 million computer-technology levy failed by less than 1 percent in May. If even half the 533 Issaquah teachers with homes elsewhere had resided in the district and voted yes, the levy would have passed.

A sense of community diminishes when teachers live elsewhere, officials say.

"Seeing school staff at the grocery store, at church or participating in community activities helps students to see these are . . . contributors to their community," said Janene Fogard, an assistant superintendent for Lake Washington schools.

Of course, teachers aren't any worse off than police officers, nurses, air-traffic controllers, accountants or anyone who makes similar wages. And many have working spouses or bought homes before the price surges of 1990-91 and 1997-98.

Housing affordability is as good as it was two decades ago, contends economist Dick Conway, co-publisher of the Puget Sound Economic Forecaster. An average mortgage payment in King, Pierce, Kitsap and Snohomish counties takes 18 percent of average household income, he says - about the same as in the late 1970s. Low interest rates have helped. Prices indeed have spiraled up, he says, but that has been offset by more women working.

"The phenomenon (of two-income households) was going on since the '70s. It's as much a social one as an economic one," Conway said.

Teachers-union leaders here grumble about Washington's one-size-fits-all pay system. Salaries are the same here as in the Yakima Valley or Grays Harbor, where the cost of living is lower.

On the other hand, working in the metropolitan area is attractive because rural schools get less local property-tax money for computers, building repairs, teacher training and the arts.

Lawmakers need to boost teacher pay, argues Kevin Teeley, president of the Lake Washington district's teachers-union local. However, the 1997-99 two-year salary schedule is already set with no cost-of-living raise this fall. Teachers gained 3 percent last year, but some lost the money to higher health-insurance premiums.

Eastside districts have written extra training days into their contracts, partly to help teachers make ends meet. That helps a first-year teacher in Bellevue make $24,588 instead of the state minimum of $22,950.

Many younger teachers work second jobs, says Mike Coleman, president of the Bellevue teachers local.

"Seattle used to be our safety net; you could move into Seattle," he said. "But traffic has gotten worse, and it's gotten more expensive there."

The Riverview School District, serving Duvall and Carnation, offered a principal's job to Brian Frazier of Gardnerville, Nev., but the pay range of $64,000 to $68,000 buys less than the $59,000 to $63,000 he is making in Nevada. Frazier didn't want to have his wife work because their children are 3 and 6 years old.

"Had it not been so expensive, I would probably be up there right now," he said. "I'm not looking for a gold house on a hill, but I want to live in the district where I work."

Traffic patterns also affect housing choices. Bellevue teacher Colleen McIntyre, who returned last year from rural Alaska, bought a $140,000, four-bedroom house in Bellingham, figuring she can drive 70 mph on Interstate 5 instead of stewing on suburban boulevards for almost as long.

Davies wanted to teach so much that she quit a higher-paying job at Nordstrom to study at Seattle Pacific University, then earned a master's degree in curriculum from City University. Student-loan bills consume $300 a month, so she also works at the Alderwood Mall Nordstrom and recruited a roommate.

To Davies, who was raised in a Redmond apartment, that is part of the price of the American dream of a house and yard.

Mike Lindblom's phone message number is 206-515-5631. His e-mail address is: mlin-new@seatimes.com