Wake County School Board takes steps to grant teacher tenure, raises
CARY, N.C. (WTVD) -- There were two wins for teachers in Tuesday night's Wake County School Board meeting. Teacher tenure, or career status, and the locally funded supplement to salaries, topped the big talkers of the evening.
CAREER STATUS
The board voted to push ahead with a proposed policy that would give teachers who have served at least five years with the county some of the job protections state lawmakers took away in 2013.
Under the board's plan, a teacher who meets that criteria and earns positive evaluations for three years can only be let go for one or more of the following 15 reasons as listed by Wake County Public School System:
- Inadequate performance
- Immorality
- Insubordination
- Neglect of duty
- Physical or mental incapacity
- Habitual or excessive use of alcohol or nonmedical use of a controlled substance as defined in Article 5 of Chapter 90 of the General Statutes.
- Conviction of a felony or a crime involving moral turpitude.
- Advocating the overthrow of the government of the United States or of the State of North Carolina by force, violence, or other unlawful means.
- Failure to fulfill the duties and responsibilities imposed upon teachers by the General Statutes of this State.
- Failure to comply with such reasonable requirements as the Board may prescribe.
- Any cause which constitutes grounds for the revocation of the teacher's teaching license.
- A justifiable decrease in the number of positions due to district reorganization, decreased enrollment, or decreased funding.
- Failure to maintain his or her license in a current status.
- Failure to repay money owed to the State in accordance with the provisions of Article 60, Chapter 143 of the General Statutes.
- Providing false information or knowingly omitting a material fact on an application for employment or in response to a pre-employment inquiry.
A final vote on this proposed policy will come during the next board meeting on Feb. 17, but it's something Paulette Leaven is already celebrating.
"I feel vindicated," she said.
Leaven has been a teacher for 34 years and works at Holly Springs High School. She believes the Wake County School Board helped right what many refer to as "wrongs" by state lawmakers.
In the 2013 legislative session, state lawmakers took away teacher tenure, essentially eliminating job protections for teachers.
"For clarification, we're still following the law on teacher contracts," said School Board Chair Christine Kushner.
"I think this puts us here in Wake County in a very strong position for recruiting teachers, for telling teachers we really value your work," said school board member, Dr. Jim Martin.
TEACHER SUPPLEMENTAL SALARY
The other big topic out of Tuesday night's school board meeting was the allocation of millions dollars to supplement teacher pay.
"We've got an additional $3.75 million dollars to adjust our teacher salary supplement salary," said David Neter, the Chief Business Officers for Wake County Schools.
That money comes out of a reserve approved in the Wake County budget by the county commission to supplement teacher pay with what they were already granted by the state, which Leaven said wasn't much.
"What happened to us, based upon what the General Assembly voted that we would get in raises and increases was disrespectful, absolutely disrespectful," said Leaven.
Allocating that money though, proved to be a separate challenge. Neter said he brought the board three options before they decided on one.
"None of the options were ideal, because again with 10,000 teachers, while $3.75 million dollars is a lot of money, we need to look at it over that many teachers. It's not significant," said Neter. "The third option was to basically not just look at those teachers in the classrooms teaching students but to expand it beyond that."
So in the end, teachers are included in that pay bump group as well others on what's considered the same teacher supplement schedule, such as instructional resource teachers.
Spreading that money over thousands of employees won't amount to much of an increase in paychecks.
"It's going to be $10 to $15 a month before taxes," said Neter. "It's a baby step in the right direction. The gesture was meaningful, but as far as if it's going to make a difference to them I'll let you and the audience be the judge of that."
Board member Bill Fletcher wasted no time sharing his opinion after the board approved the pay plan.
"We are paying around 14.5 percent locally supported funding to our teachers when the model for North Carolina school funding is state operated school system. And I believe it's true that somewhere around 108 of 114 school districts are having to pay a local supplement to keep teachers in the classroom. Looking at the big picture of things, thankful for the Wake County Commission and citizens to pony up to supplement the state's salary, the real issue is at the state level. We need to stay focused on that. Not to beat anyone up but that's where the real issue is in a state, in the configuration North Carolina public schools are in, following the depression, changes that had to be done."
