Teachers and parents protest the lack of a contract for the second year in a row.
JAY – School Committee members voted Thursday to increase substitute pay and hire a curriculum assistant.
Members conducted school business as parents and teachers held placards in the audience in protest of teachers working without a new contract for the second year in a row.
At least one of the posters asked to “settle the contract now.”
Superintendent Robert Wall presented board members with a new table of rates for substitutes in the system.
The board approved teacher substitute pay per day at: $50, nondegree; $55, two-plus-year degree; $60, bachelor’s degree.
Extended or long-term substitute pay was set at: $80, two-year degree; $105, bachelor’s degree; $136.65, certified based on per diem rate of first year teacher.
Education technician substitute pay is now $50 per day or $25 for half-day. Food service substitutes earn $7.82 per hour and custodian/bus driver substitutes receive $10.77 per hour.
They also approved Wall’s recommendation to hire a curriculum/administrative assistant II.
Wall said there is money in the budget for curriculum development and he would like to use it to hire a person to provide comprehensive clerical support services to the Jay superintendent/curriculum coordinator.
Wall said the pay would be $12.02 per hour for 6.5 hours a day, five days a week. Wall calculated salary for the position on a Oct. 6 start day would be $14,454.05 and insurance benefits factored at the maximum rate would be $8,811.
The assistant would process minutes of curriculum meetings and drafts of curriculum; assemble and distribute information; create final curriculum final curriculum documents; gather material and information from administrators, teachers, resource people, and other resources; prepares for curriculum meetings; provides administrative assistant/clerical support for superintendent/curriculum coordinator.
In the public comment period, parent April Hartford welcomed Wall and encouraged him to get involved in the contract dispute and resolve it soon.
Hartford said that “many people don’t believe morale or our children are being affected by negotiations” and the unsettled contract but they are.
She gave several examples including the affect on her children of teachers that worked closely with them who have left the system, and her husband, a Jay teacher who didn’t get a step increase in his paycheck that he and other teachers expected this year.
She also noted as a member of the town’s Budget Committee, which worked hard to save money on the school budget that the School Committee has spent 65,000-plus on negotiations.
That money could have paid for 50 new computers or 50,000 new books. It also could have covered 1 years of the town’s summer recreation or the hiring of two new teachers, Hartford said.
Hartford also asked board members to “please think about” not only the taxpayers but also representing “our children” as they negotiate teachers’ salaries.
Hartford noted that taxes have not gone up in the last two years, yet inflation has. She asked that teachers receive the same fairness that bus drivers/custodians, secretaries, administrators and the town manager did when they got raises.
School Committee members entered executive session for teacher and educational support staff negotiations.
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