The Natchitoches Parish School Board committee meeting was brief Tuesday afternoon, July 9. One item on the agenda is directed toward teacher retention and attraction. It will consider granting authority to the Superintendent to determine beginning rate of pay, step increases, continued rate of pay and years-experience based on critical need performance.
HR Director Linda Page said long-term subs must work for 30 consecutive days in the same position at a rate of $60 per day. Moving forward from the 31st day the pay rate increases to $168 per day. The problem occurs, for example, when a long-term sub works for 40 days and is placed in a new position and they have to start all over again at $60 per day. This is unfair to them.
Another problem occurs, for example, when a teacher transferring into the system, or a teacher being promoted to a principal, is expected to start at the pay rate for “zero years of experience.” A beginning principal may end up making less than when they were working as a teacher. Or a certified math teacher who also coaches would have to start from the bottom of the pay scale. These situations are unfair.
This agenda item would allow the superintendent to make discretionary decisions based on experience and length of employment.
In other news, there are three long-term subs currently getting their practitioners licenses and four others who have become fully certified recently. There is also a need for an additional nurse on staff as there are incoming students with health issues that require special attention.
Another agenda item will initiate a labor market survey for the incoming superintendent. This will not begin a search for the new superintendent, but will give the school board an idea of what the pay structure will need to be if and when they initiate a superintendent search.
The last item on the agenda is to discuss documents from OpenGov that provide information on financial transparency. This would help the school board increase the public’s trust in what they’re doing.
The school board will vote on these items at their regular meeting on Thursday, July 11 at 5 pm at the School Board Office on Royal Street.
I thought that the School Board was worthless, now I know they are! Any board member who votes for allowing the superintendent to determine salaries is a freaking idiotic and should be removed! The new board president hasn’t a clue what’s she’s doing! That’s why the behind to back the effort to have her elected! She has become the joke of this community! Just wait to Skinners backstabbers get a raise.
The best thing this board could do for recruiting is to fire that stupid superintendent! He has run off dozens and dozens of highly effective teachers and will continue to do so! It’s hard to watch a board of people destroy a school system! Natchitoches has become a recruiting haven for other parishes as long as he is here!
TRANSPARENCY? I watched a person who served on a community board, ask why the board itself would not agree to a FREE audit by the State Legislative Auditors office. Mind you, that this was a committee of community leaders handpicked by the board, and the board’s president idea! NOPE!
A group representing the State of Department of Education has already made an assessment of the deficiency that plague this system! LACK
OF LEADERSHIP. That speaks volumes about how yall are viewed! This board and its superintendent are a disgrace!
Giving a superintendent so much power is a mistake. Letting any one person “determine beginning rate of pay, step increases, continued rate of pay and years-experience based on critical need performance” is no way to keep the teachers you have or attract others to the parish. And a bully like Mr. Skinner? Ask any of the teachers who worked under him what kind of administrator he was (as long as they can remain anonymous).
As long as some of our schools, namely Natchitoches Central, are zoos with the cage doors wide open, no teacher in his or her right mind would come to them. Parents are uncooperative and powerless to say the least. That they’re downright nasty to teachers is an understatement.
Does this parish actually start experienced teachers coming from other parishes at the pay rate for zero years of experience? How archaic. In every parish in which I’ve taught, teachers are paid for the years they’ve put in the classroom. Some of those parishes were very poor, but their school boards knew the value of keeping teachers. I guess the fact that NSU sends out so many new teachers has made our school board overconfident; they can always replace a teacher with a brand new one.