Overworked, Underpaid - PreK Literacy Tutor The Literacy Lab Employee Review

When we launched our pay equity work 5 years ago, it became clear that there was a significant pay disparity between what were our coach roles and our program staff roles. Our coach roles were paid at a higher rate for less hours worked than our program staff--coaches were part-time, while program staff were full-time. Our coach roles were 10 month positions while our program staff were 12 month positions, creating not only pay inequity but workload inequity when closing out one program year and launching another. We made changes to bring the coach pay scale and overall role scope into alignment with the program staff pay and role scope (and other roles as well). The rationale and methodology for this were shared with all staff. Our current staff pay is on par with organizations our size (see PNC staffing 2025 report on nonprofit pay). In 2024 we ended our partnership with AmeriCorps for a variety of reasons, reasons that have engulfed the nonprofit sector since. What was once a stable, long-term funding source became unpredictable and volatile with changes in national leadership. Since that time, the nonprofit sector has undergone significant restructuring and layoffs. Like many other nonprofit (and for profit) organizations, The Literacy Lab had to make extremely difficult decisions over the past 18-24 months, ones we wish no organization ever had to make.