001a motion please to adopt this evening's agenda. I move to adopt the agenda as presented. Second. All those in favor please raise your right hand and say I. I. >> I. Okay, we are officially in session. Uh item 2.01 the resi- revised compensa- compensation package, Dr. Buck. Yeah, and just so for people know, we're going to have this in both systems right now. BoardDocs is a 2.01. We're we have to switch over to diligent cuz BoardDocs is going away. We also have it in diligent. 2.01 is blank and says 2.02, but it really is 2.01. So, just want everybody to know that. Um so, first off, we're grateful to our community for participating in this important uh decision this week. Prop C full waiver passed with 60.14% yes vote. The outcome reflects our shared commitment
002to investing in people who maintain a strong competitive school system. I want to thank the folks who are part of business round table and the citizen advisory committee for talking about doing this since 2022. And thank you to the prior Board of Education for the resolution to put this on the April 26 ballot and for of course the current board for putting it on this ballot. During our speaker series, we had 51 events and two town halls speaking to thousands in our community. During those events, it was stated that Team Lee's Summit recommend- recommendation would decide how to allocate Prop C funds. That recommendation made by uh representative employee group elected by each employment group has been known for over a month and was presented at last month's board meeting. I want to thank them
003including our two board members who are on the committee, one in person, one in who is virtual uh right now um for sitting on the committee for their many full days of work coming to the recommendation before the board today. I also want to acknowledge what this means for our roughly 2,800 staff members. Our current schedules were created and implemented in the 2012-2013 school year. Since that time, inflation's increased by approximately 41% to date. Our schedules have not kept up with that inflation. Teacher salary schedules increased by 28.06% support staff by 24.8% administrators by 22.55% and professional staff by 19.21%. While Team Lee's Summit recommendation ensures that all schedules are above inflation for this one year, I want to acknowledge that all schedules are still behind inflation when compared to the when the schedules were
004implemented in the '12-'13 school year. I'm grateful to our community for helping us move the needle in the right direction for all of our valuable employees. With that said, I fully support the Team Lee's Summit recommendation before you today. I move that the board approve the proposed revised compensation package for '26-'27 school year. Second. Board member Haley. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. First of all, I'm at a disadvantage. I don't have my laptop. Um Dr. Carlson, perhaps you could help me. How many dollars annually does this mean to someone on step one as a new teacher? Let me bring up the two schedules. When you say step one, I presume you mean bachelor step one or master >> just like in a first-year teacher. >> First-year teacher. Thank you. >> teacher. Because that's
005what was we presented to the community that where we were we were lagging behind in in the Kansas City area. So, I want to know how many dollars we're actually talking about giving these folks. Yeah, in the marketing material was uh in the presentations we did, we referenced this was from Team Lee's Summit you doing it as $975 to the base of the teacher salary schedule and a like percentage increase to others. So, I think the answer you're looking but I can give you the exact >> So, is it $975? Yes, so $44,180 is our salary schedule today at step one bachelor's. And going to the schedule in the packet, it'll then change to $45,155. So, is that about 1,100 bucks? I think it's that 975. >> 975, okay. Okay, so how many dollars would
006this mean to um an administrator like yourself on an annual basis based on the Team Lee's Summit recommendations? I'm Let's let's just assume a senior >> If I was coming if you were having me back? Yeah, let's assume you were coming back next year. Let me grab those. So, for you and you mean like not a me personally, what my sal- you want my salary this year? >> No, I just want to know how many dollars the increase would be based on Team Lee's Summit's recommendations. Uh I think I'm on 15. But let me look my Let me look at my contract. I'll bring up those two schedules. Yeah, I'm I'm just looking for my la- I mean, I could do it on the No, that's okay. Okay. So, let me get a calculator. Sorry,
007I wasn't prepared for this something. Okay, so with step movement, I think it'd be like just do the first step. The first year. Cuz that'd be the comparison. Oh, for the step one teacher step one. Step one for you is I think if you're range 15, it's going to be 153,711 now. Yep. And then I don't know what it is. My S147 394. 29 So, for a step one, it'd be 2977. So, but it would be because our schedules are indexed, it would be more as you go through the schedule. >> Right. So, so for someone who had many more years of experience, it'd be more than that. Yeah, so it'd be more than that. Um you know, as as much as I respect the work the Team Lee's Summit did and and does annually,
008I would like to suggest that we um use all of the Prop C money just for teachers and support staff. I mean, when we presented this to the community, we presented it using the argument or the the persuasion that we're we're suffering on teacher's pay. And and we we presented that we were number 13 in the Kansas City area on starting pay. And we're admitting that that's not even going to move us up to just about like 11 or 10 or something like that when we make the step. I'm just suggesting we just load the the teachers and support staff with all of the Prop C money. Everybody else has gotten a step or a cost of living raise already. I mean, we've already you know, talked about that. So, I I think that would
009be a more equitable approach to the Prop C money. Dr. Nickens. Yes, so I served on Team Lee's Summit. We had a lot of discussions about that. Um the problem is when you target a single position or set of positions and move them up and don't move anyone else up, you get salary compression. And then what you have is a situation where for example, if we move teachers up and we don't increase the pay of assistant principals, those salaries run together. And you don't have any incentive then for teachers to step into get that additional certification, step into assistant principal position which does um you know, allow us succession plans in leadership and a nice deep bench to step into principal roles at some for some of them at some point, right? So, what's the
010incentive if you can um teachers have a lot fewer hours on their contract than assistant principals do. Assistant principals, and correct me when I'm wrong, Dr. Carlson, assistant principals have fewer hours on their contract than principals do. So, we even looked at it hourly. Like at what would hourly pay break down to. When you elevate the teachers and don't elevate any administrators, there's no longer any incentive for someone to step out of the classroom into an administrative role. Also, if you elevated okay, well, let's bump up the um assistant principals then since we're going to raise the teachers up. Well, now you have a situation where assistant principals have fewer hours on their contract required than principals do and yet the pay differential is so small, right? Again, what's the incentive to take on additional
011responsibility and more hours when functionally the only reason you're getting paid more is you're working more hours. Okay? Um another example is like teachers at the secondary level, middle school, high school, they have the option to um a- earn additional stipends by coaching or supervising different student groups, things like that. So, one teacher on Team Lee Summit explained that he had no incentive to step into any administrative role because he would actually take a pay cut because of the years he's had in the classroom and his level of educational attainment combined with the stipend he gets through coaching. He would take a cut to work more hours at an assistant principal or principal level. So, you can't just fix one thing. Everything has a ripple effect. We looked at it upside down, inside out, sideways.
012We used four different sources of salary comparison data including MSTA, MNEA, uh what Platte City Platte County uh pulls together from the region and shares with everybody, our own surveys, our own staff support studies, our own administrative We looked at so many numbers and we had deep discussions about how to address this. The whole All of the salary schedules were really messed up with a lot of issues with compression until they were addressed how many years ago, Dr. Carlson? They had to be recalibrated. Yeah, it depends on which job you're talking about. We made some range adjustments a few years ago to some support staff positions. Um did some other things with the schedules and I mean if you go back even further, we changed the step indexing on the support staff schedule from 1
013and 1/2 to 2% and things like that. Yeah. So, um we have in the past 2 years, um we have addressed critical shortage areas where we have a lot of turnover, a lot of vacancies and that included some of the professional staff positions where we were able to raise pay specifically for those without creating a lot of problems with running into the next level. And also bus monitors, I believe, um last year we adjusted, right? I wasn't on the board. This is just studies that that we looked at. So, um we have been able to in some case It's a case-by-case thing. In some cases, you can elevate the pay of say paras without having salary compression into teacher pay. Paras are not required to have a 4-year degree and teachers are. You don't want
014their salary to be touching. You know, you don't want a para who is not required to have a degree and can be hired with virtually no training, right? To earn as much even if you break it down hourly as a new teacher. So, you have it's just not as simple as I mean I I I've had a lot of people ask, "Why don't you just pay these people more?" You can't. It All of it's connected. I mean, it is really a complicated thing. We We literally have talked about this all year on Team Lee Summit. And it's not I don't want to say it's not fixable because it's really not broken. It is just the way the salaries try to reflect the number of hours required on the contract, the amount of education required, the
015number of years that a professional has already put in to their practice. So, it's just complicated. It's not as if we if we look at one single classification or or step or row, it has a ripple effect on everything else and 3 years down the road, we're going to have a much more expensive problem to fix. I don't know if that helps. Board member Haley. Okay, I I understand the compression issue and I understand how all that works. You know, we're creating something that's just the opposite. We're giving $1,000 to a a first step person and we're giving $3,000 to somebody that's on this administrative Okay, we're creating a spread. We're not creating compression. We're spreading them out. So, what I'm suggesting is that let's just with the Prop C, I mean, every year we
016deal with with salaries and funding with Team Lee Summit. I'm just talking about Prop C. We promoted this to the community for teachers. Let's give the money to the teachers and the support staff. Can I ask a question? Uh yes. Uh is that Dr. Johnson? Yes, go ahead, please. Yes, Bill, just curious, um when you say just teachers and support staff, are you including principals and assistant principals in the building? I'm just wondering what admin you want to separate out. Yeah, I would be okay with leaving uh principals and assistant principals since they're in the buildings and and that's what Dr. Nickens was mostly concerned about on the compression issue. So, I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. Okay, so you mean to just be clear, SLC people working at SLC. Yeah, I
017would That That's what I would say, yes. And we did discuss that too in terms of it has come up on more than one occasion separating those salary schedules. I just to let you know, that has been discussed also so that we don't run into these challenges of compression and such. That was it. I just wanted to clarify who we're talking about so we're not We're talking about people at SLC, not building Uh Dr. Buck. I just want to clarify a couple things. One, SLC has a probably most of the people work here either teacher or support staff or professional staff. Um the vast majority are not administrators in this building. Um teach There are a lot of teachers in this building. Um so, I just want to clarify that SLC is not just the
018admin sca- schedule. Um two, I want to clarify all of our material and I just got up our website on Prop C is talking about all staff. Um we did have the comparison of teacher salaries cuz that's what people understand, but we kept talking about all staff. Um I mean, the last thing I would say is I would also advocate we need all staff. We need We have 2,800 people to take care of important things. Um and we need them all. I always say the hardest job for me if I if I was personally to do it would be driving a bus. Every vehicle I've ever owned has a dent in it for a reason. I'm not a very good driver. Um so, you know, but when I put my eighth grader on the bus,
019I want that bus driver to be great. When I go to the nurse, I want her to be great. If there's a um a discipline issue or safety issue, I want my administrator to be great. If it's a if I have a student with an IEP, I want my IEP team to be great. There's people in this building who totally help support that. So, I want to advocate all means all and that's kind of what we said 51 times in our tour. That's what our our documentations have said. It's about all staff. Dr. Nickens. Um just to go back to something um Sorry. Um just to go back to something that Board member Haley was saying as an example, um we gave percent raises. So, I know that translates into obviously different dollar amounts, but
020someone who's already has 20 years in the profession and has a doctoral degree, proportionally, 2% is going to be more dollars than someone with a bachelor's degree and no experience. That's You know what I mean? Like that. It wouldn't really make sense to not to just do You couldn't do a dollar-wise distribution and make it equitable. It has to be a proportion or percentage-wise distribution. Again, that just creates this makes the spread larger every year when you give everybody the same percent. So, I mean, the spread is going to continue to grow if we just continue to give straight percentage raises to everybody. Dr. Buck. I'm just going to advocate for my folks. So, if we're talking about SLT, there's not that many in SLT. Um last 3 years, I've lost three members to another
021district. All of them for to make Well, one made 40,000 more, one made 28,000 more, and another one made 43,000 more. So, just so you If we're talking about trying to you know, is this a recruitment retain, um that is a piece. So, we We've had people who have applied for SLT positions turn us down because they would take a pay cut to come here um from neighboring districts. So, just advocating for our folks. Dr. Nickens. I need to wear one of those little lapel things. Um if you're talking about the the highest level administrators, the superintendent's cabinet, it's um assistant superintendents. Um they also aren't They don't have a number of hours on their contract, either. They work as is needed. So, they tend to put a lot more. If we broke their pay
022down by hour, it would probably be getting pretty close to some of our building administrators, to be honest. They put a lot of hours in. They put a lot of weekend hours in. They oversee construction. They do a lot of things that probably they didn't know they were going to do when they became a teacher. Um also, the only the only positions that have been eliminated have been our higher level administrative positions, right, uh Dr. Buck? Uh 43% of the positions we eliminated were in this building this year. Um we also eliminated some building subs going in this year as well. >> That's right. Our sub system. So, we have made cuts in that area as well. Is there anybody uh that's online that that would like to participate in the discussion, please? Um this
023is Michelle. Um Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. Okay. Um I'll I don't have anything to add but uh to what Dr. Nickens has already said. Um I would say that those would be the reasons all the reasons that Dr. Nickens and Dr. Buck have listed would be the reasons that I would continue to support the proposal that's put in front of us. And um as a reminder, as Dr. Buck already said, we've had time to review this. Um we've known pretty much what Team Lee Summit was going to propose. And so, to bring it up on the night of the vote, it feels a little late. Um but I still agree with what Dr. Nickens talked about and said as the reason why Team Lee's Summit brought this. I fully I fully support
024it. Board member Haley. Yeah, Michelle, the reason I brought it up because Prop C passed. We couldn't talk about it before Prop C passed. But we did have access to the proposal before Prop C passed. Is there anyone else online that would like to participate in the discussion? If not, I would like to say one thing. I was on Team Lee's Summit last year when there was considerable discussion about the admin pay in terms of looking at where we fell in the, you know, top third, bottom third, middle third. And there was obviously interest on behalf of building principal representatives to address that that because they felt like their people were not being compensated. Um and the example that was used last year just to contrast this, Board member Haley was you know, like how
025an experienced teacher could be making more money than an assistant principal. And I think that I'm trying to tie this back into Dr. Nickens' comment. There is something to be said about longevity where you do finally find yourself maybe out-earning someone or you've got all those extra coaching duties and sponsorship duties that you finally have gotten yourself at a place where you felt like you needed to be for your your financial budget. Um but it's a it is a difficult situation and I I just remember being in that room that day when uh in this room when the conversation kind of stonewalled out that um we have to we have to address everyone and because of that you just can't have a perfect system for there is not a perfect system for everyone. And um
026some of the things that have been done in the past led to some of the problems that then have been had to rec been rectified and I mean my personal paycheck was part of that. So um I I I appreciate the the sentiment. Um I just um I just I don't know, I just felt like I needed to weigh in from what what the discussion was about that last year. So. >> [snorts] >> I don't have any other lights on and if I'm not hearing anything from at home or actually actually we're not at home. We're all on vacation. So good for you. I'm trying to give a pause. So we have a motion on the floor. We have a second. Okay, I'm going to call for the vote then. All those in favor of
027the um Oh, do we need a We need a roll call on this. I'm sorry. >> you have to be able to see them. So we just need to hear them and we may have to ask them to be sure. Like what did you say if I don't know? So we are going to then vote on the updated uh compensation package. So all those in favor, please raise your right hand and say I. I. I. I. I. Michelle and Camille are I. I. I. I. Those opposed. Okay. Board member Garrett has a vote. >> Where in the name >> Well, I mean Okay, I am voting I am voting to go ahead with the proposal. Okay. I I as far as I still have questions as far as like the way we presented it and
028how it was going to be um I think somebody at uh one of our our current board members had said that teachers were working more than one job. Is this going to help them only work one job? I mean, I don't know. And that's my concern and that's why I kind of agree with Bill on this. But um I do I don't want to stonewall and and not allow teachers to get their crumbs in my opinion. So I'll go ahead and vote yes. Uh but I feel like it should be more for teachers. For teachers and staff and and principals and assistant principals. Okay, thank you. Okay, so uh Mrs. Meyer, do we have the total? 61. 61. Okay, the new compensation package has passed and I think this meeting is officially concluded. Thank you
029and have a great evening. Thank you. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Have a good time.