Disparities in teacher compensation between Gunn and Palo Alto High School (Paly) resulted in changes to the Social Emotional Literacy and Functionality (SELF) mentoring structure, so students now only attend SELF biweekly. On the off weeks, they will instead participate in Study Hall, a time designated for completing homework, studying and doing other quiet activities.

Although there has never been an abundance of staff members willing to teach SELF, there have always been enough to fill the necessary spots—until this year. Last spring, several SELF mentors were reluctant to return to the program, mostly due to a realization that Paly’s teacher advisors—analogous, at least superficially, to SELF mentors—were being compensated at higher rates than the SELF mentors at Gunn.

According to SELF Mentor and former SELF Coordinator Tara Firenzi, the pandemic created difficulties in maintaining communication with Paly around their respective programs. “We had been coordinating quite a bit with Paly in terms of knowing what they were doing, and then 2020 broke down that communication in a lot of ways,” she said. “Then, [after the pandemic,] we found out that there was a very different [compensation] model in place at Paly.”

SELF Coordinator Kathryn Catalano noted that Gunn’s compensation rate reflected an estimated 71 hours annually for SELF mentor duties—mentors were not being paid for teaching during the SELF period itself, but rather for other duties they were expected to perform, such as attending meetings about the program. However, as the SELF coordinators and Gunn administration found out in May, the rates of compensation across both campuses were vastly different: During the 2021–2022 school year, Paly teacher advisors for grades 9 and 10 were paid $10,000 a year, while advisors for grades 11 and 12 were compensated at one-fifth of their salary. These advisors taught four periods, but were paid as if they taught five, with their Advisory period constituting this “fifth” class. At the same time, all Gunn SELF mentors were paid $4,500 a year.

The disparities in compensation between the two campuses originate, in part, from the differences between their respective programs. Paly students participate in Advisory, an older program more strongly connected to academic counseling than social-emotional learning. On the other hand, Gunn’s SELF program—launched in 2017—was created specifically to address California’s social-emotional learning standards and to place an emphasis on student wellness, according to Assistant Principal Courtney Carlomagno, who helped set up the program. “California was adopting [social emotional learning] standards, and we had to show we had a place where we were meeting these standards,” she said. “SELF was [also] a response to the fact that we needed more community and we needed to make sure that all students had access to a trusted adult.”

Given that the two programs were created to fulfill separate needs, staff members’ roles for SELF and Advisory differ. Teacher advisors at Paly for example, write letters of recommendation for their students and advise them throughout the college admissions process. In essence, they perform many of the tasks that guidance counselors usually perform, and this explains part of the funding gap. Because teacher advisors function similarly to counselors, Paly has fewer guidance counselors than Gunn and is thus able to compensate its advisors at a higher rate. Catalano found that this disparity played into some SELF mentors’ decisions about returning for the 2022–2023 school year. “As soon as we knew about [the discrepancy], we immediately went to our mentors,” she said. “It became clear very quickly that the majority of our mentors were not comfortable continuing to meet every week at the $4,500 yearly compensation.”