School Board Approves Salary Increases :: Continues Review of Corporal Punishment Policy

by Leslie Lytle Messenger Staff Writer

At the May 11 meeting, the Franklin County School Board approved a 2 percent raise for classified employees and a step-scale salary increase for certified employees (teachers and principals). The board also considered proposals for addressing the recurring budget shortfall and revisited the corporal punishment policy.

For the 2015–16 academic year, the school system will receive $550,000 from the state earmarked for salary increases. The 2 percent increase will be the first raise classified employees have received in several years. The total cost to the school system is approximately $100,000.

Assistant Superintendent Linda Foster proposed two revisions to the certified employees’ pay scale she presented at the May 4 working session.

Since then, Foster compared starting salaries in other area school systems and concluded a $37,000 starting salary “was higher than it needed to be to have the desired impact” of attracting good teachers. Accordingly, Foster suggested setting the starting teacher salary at $36,000 instead of $37,000.

Foster further suggested using the surplus generated by this change to raise the percentage of salary increase for teachers in the system more than 12 years. “We need to attract the very best, train them and keep them,” Foster said.

The salary increase for certified employees approved by the board for the 2015–16 academic year will cost $462,503.

The salary increase figures will be plugged into the 2015–16 budget. The board will vote on the budget at a special called meeting at 6:30 p.m., Monday, June 1, prior to a regular work session on the same date.

In response to the Franklin County Commission’s question about what they could do to help remedy the $1.6 million budget shortfall projected for next year, Director of Schools Rebecca Sharber proposed two long-term solutions for the board to consider recommending.

Looking at budget trends, the school system’s average budget shortfall is $600,000, Sharber said. The danger resides in depleting the fund balance the school system draws on to meet the budget shortfall. That balance is projected to be $2,771,000 at the end of the 2015–16 school year.

Sharber proposed the county relieve the school system from making payments from its operating budget on the new high school debt ($500,000 annually) and the $3 million bond ($210,000 annually) and that those debts be repaid with sales tax revenue already earmarked for school system debt service repayment.

Sharber’s other proposal for budget shortfall relief was an increase of $.08 per dollar in the amount the school system receives from property taxes.

Sharber will draft resolutions for the two proposals and present them for the board’s review at the June 1 working session.

Continuing the discussion on revising the corporal punishment policy, the board reviewed data for the 2014–15 school year. Four of the 11 schools in the system never used corporal punishment. A total of 45 students received corporal punishment, with more than half of these students attending Decherd Elementary (16 students receiving corporal punishment) and Sewanee Elementary (11 students receiving corporal punishment).

The trend was toward “kindergarten and first graders” receiving corporal punishment more often, Sharber said.

Board member Sara Liechty said schools should be a “safe” place, and corporal punishment can create an atmosphere where “children don’t feel safe” at school.

The revision to the policy would prohibit the school system from using corporal punishment unless parents signed a consent form at the beginning of the school year.

“Most of the surrounding school systems have a policy very similar to what we have now,” board member CleiJo Walker said in opposition to the revision.

Board member Adam Tucker, representing Sewanee, expressed concern about the school system’s liability under the present policy. “From a legal standpoint there’s a big difference between active and passive consent.” The school principals have been invited to attend the June 1 working session to voice their opinions on the subject.