EARL WATT & ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Interim teachers will see an increase in salary following Monday’s meeting of the USD 480 school board.
Near the end of the meeting, the board heard a proposal for a new pay scale for interim teachers.
“When I was working on the analysis for our interim structure, I noticed we really have two different groups in the entire population,” Director of Business Services Nila Newton said. “If we start with the pathway teachers, what I did was look at the levels and those salaries and made a percentage of years they’ve worked for the district. For level one, that ended up being 95 percent of that first year salary, level two was 93 percent, level three was 91 percent, level four was 89 percent, and level five was 87 percent. But when we look at all the teachers on the teaching pathway, I’ve categorized them all as pathway teachers, put them at the level they qualified for, and gave them an increase. The total cost would be approximately $165,238 for that group. With the long-term substitute teachers, what I did was use the levels they’re currently at, and what I’m recommending is creating a long-term substitute pay scale, where we can place those teachers based on how many years they’ve worked for USD 480 as an interim teacher. That would all of the level six teachers, and this would give them a raise of up to 72 percent of the first year teaching salary. Level five would be at 82 percent of the first year salary, level three would be at 86 percent of the first year salary.”
But instead of considering Newton’s alternative, the board questioned how the percentages didn’t remain the same when the first-year certified rate was adjusted two years ago.
Board member Alan Brown then asked about what was the percentage interims made before the certified increased two years ago. Newton said she was confused about what Brown was asking, and Director of Operations Chad Mease calculated the difference between an interim and a certified teacher two years ago was that an interim made 98.6 percent at Level 1 of the six-tiered interim system of what a first-year teacher was making. But when the adjustment for first-year salaries was made two years ago, the interim pay rate was not adjusted dropping the percentage form 98.6 percent to 87.4 percent.
“That was not our intent,” Brown said of the board and ultimately made a motion to reflect the same percentages from two years ago for interim instructors as well.
The final result would make interim salaries increase to match the raise given to certified instructors by percentage. Brown also included in his motion to make the adjustment retroactive to the beginning of the current school year.
The lack of a pay adjustment for interims was one of the reasons Bryan Luetters resigned as head coach of the football program.
Sarah Thompson seconded Brown’s motion, and board members Sarah Thompson, Brown, Brad Carr, Mike Brack and Kaylee Ruiz-Lopez voted in favor of the adjustment while Jesus Baeza abstained. Nick Hatcher was absent.
With the motion passing, interim instructors will receive back pay reflecting the adjustment on their February paychecks and then see the increased rate for the remainder of their pay checks the rest of the term of their contract.
Those on Tier 1 who were earning $43,680 will see their salary increase to around $49,300. Each various level will see a comparable increase by percentage.
Earlier in the meeting, the board chose Carr and Thompson as the board president and vice president, respectively, and the board members first heard from Theresa Carrillo about the importance of community support in the schools.
“I’m a USD 480 employee, and I have been present at other board meetings and various athletic events and other student events,” Carrillo began. “My training is in social work, and I’m also an interim teacher. This semester, I’m an interim social worker, and while I’m in a program to become licensed, I don’t benefit from the tuition assistance since it’s not a teaching program. I’ve paid for that program while attending class full time and working full time. I can’t understate my dedication and support to USD 480 and my career and my students. These past couple weeks, I’ve really witnessed an outpouring of support and aggravation from the community and my coworkers for our faculty, staff, students, and interim teachers. How inspiring to see the community come together on this. As we move forward, I really implore the community to keep up that level of scrutiny and continue expecting excellence for our students. We at LHS hold the students accountable, and we hold them to a high standard of excellence, and we ask parents and guardians to do the same. We will host parent-teacher conferences soon, and we would love to see more parents attend those conferences, because they are important. Each student is provided a Chromebook and a charger, and we would love every student to come to school every day with a fully charged Chromebook so they’re ready to go, because that Chromebook is a major tool of their success. I, as a teacher, ask for that continued support from the community when I call a student’s parent(s) and praise the recent work they’ve been doing and how well they’re doing. We ask for that same support when we call about attendance and discussing support for the students’ continued work, and we ask for that continued support in all aspects.”
LHS sophomore Brooklyn Quint then spoke to the board.
“I would like to begin by saying the announcement of Coach Luetters and all of his staff leaving at semester has caused not only me, but other athletes, to be filled with some very strong emotions,” Quint said. “I believe this is due to the fact that the football coaches have changed many, many lives. Since the day I’ve met the football coaches, they’ve had a very strong influence on me from day one. The football coaches hold a very special place in my heart and have made me better as a person and as an athlete by helping improve my quality of life and believing in me when I didn’t always believe in myself. I would ask the board to please rethink how important these coaches and interim staff members are to us students so we can keep the ones currently on staff and not lose more in the future. Please do all you can to keep these good people around.”
Later in the meeting, the board heard some information from Assistant Superintendent of Schools and Leadership Ruben Cano about interims and certified positions.
“As you all know, we currently have 116 total interim, which is roughly 29 percent of our total certified staff, and out of those 116, 52 are engaged in some teaching plan of study or program,” Cano said. “Since 2022-23, we have moved 10 interims from elementary from interim to certified, and we’re projected to move another 11 in the next school year. In secondary, since 2022-23, we’ve moved seven from interim to certified positions, and we’re projected to move another four in the next school year. Something else I want to point out is when we brought the interim teacher program to USD 480, at that time, it was approved with the direction it shouldn’t exceed $300,000 a year when covering tuition assistance. Last year, in helping interims pay for tuition as they worked on their certification, we spent slightly less than $73,000 and this year, we’ve spent slightly more than $78,000. We’ve not reached anywhere near that $300,000 threshold, and this is a program we know needs to continue because it’s seen a lot of success. And I think part of the reason we haven’t had to spend as much money from that fund is because the teachers going through those programs got either partial financial aid from the university they’re working through or full aid, so they ended up not needing help from USD 480.”
After some more discussions and questions, the presentation was concluded.
