HOUSTON — A Houston ISD teacher said he was offered a 40% raise to sign a contract and move to another school in the district, but when the offer letter arrived, it was $25,000 less than what he was originally told.
That teacher, Mario Williams, said he's not the only one the district has done this to. He said nobody in the district has been able to give him an explanation for what happened.
Williams said he's been an elementary school special education teacher with HISD for the past four years. He said the job is demanding but also rewarding.
He claims the offer he was verbally given at HISD's match day earlier in July included a 40% pay raise.
"He told us that compensation is working very hard making sure that they're getting everybody's pay right," Williams said.
At the end of the match day, he agreed to switch campuses next year and move to McReynolds Middle School - where he was told he'd be making $25,000 more than he did previously. When he received his offer letter in the mail, he says it wasn't what he was promised.
On Wednesday, he went to the district's compensation department to try and figure out the discrepancy. At first, he said the woman who was helping him said the initial offer was correct. Then, she asked to see the offer letter.
"Once she saw my offer letter she said, 'OK, let me go back in the back to check again.' And she told me, 'No, your offer letter is actually correct,'" he said.
Williams said she couldn't give him any explanation for how this happened.
"When I went in there today into the compensation department, there were a lot of people in there complaining about their pay, so I'm not the only one," he said. "I'm just the only person that actually decided to take the next step and go further."
Jackie Anderson, the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, told KHOU 11 that the teachers need to be paid what they were promised.
"Anything less is a bait-and-switch," Anderson said.
She said Williams is far from alone and that she's heard from dozens of teachers who are experiencing the same thing.
Williams told us he hasn't signed his offer letter yet and hopes the discrepancy will be fixed soon, otherwise, he doesn't know if everyone will show up when school starts in two weeks.
"I said, 'So what're you guys going to do if we decided to go on strike to fight for what's right?' She said, 'We're just going to hire other people.'"
We've reached out to HISD for a response, but have not heard back as of when this story was posted.