If students are the most important facet of a school’s campus, then faculty and staff have to be the foundation of the district.
This was Superintendent Chris Bentzel’s message to the Christian County Public Schools Board of Education last week, when he presented a critical update detailing the “high quality employees” pillar of their master plan.
Pay, of course, is a huge part of bringing in those high quality employees, and Bentzel told the board that following Spring Break, he will be convening with the district’s employees at each school to explain, at a high level, what House Bill 6 currently looks like at the Kentucky General Assembly — and how it relates to staffing, potential increases or stagnation of wages, and more.
Bentzel said such information surrounding things like the heavily-debated SEEK formula needs to come from him, so that educators, administrators and other district contractors don’t hear something from a radio advertisement or social media for an 11% wage increase that, in this moment, seems bleak from the Senate and House chambers.
He added that CCPS officials, as well as many others across the Commonwealth, have extensively lobbied for these concessions.
Meanwhile, Bentzel said there hasn’t been major movement toward an incentive bonus system, yet, but it could be coming.
According to latest district numbers, Bentzel said there were:
— Eight certified teaching opportunities;
— 73 teachers using the Option 6 program working toward certification, including 39 using the Western Kentucky University plan with matching tuition;
— 35 teachers are pushing through rank change curriculum, and with a four-year CCPS contract help with retention;
— 61 students are in Gateway Academy’s “Teaching And Learning” Pathway, including 51 females and 10 males; Bentzel said this consisted of all grade levels, and broke down as 33 Caucasian, 23 African American and five Hispanic;
— Two prospect teachers in the Rotary Impact track, one junior and one senior, who will come back to CCPS;
— And of the district’s 650 or so educators, 39 are emergency certified staffers, and seven are waiting on the Praxis.
On top of this, Bentzel added that a positive trend continues for the “Grow Your Own” teaching mechanism, in which seven students through Hopkinsville Community College and Murray State University have agreed to work on their bachelor’s and master’s degrees with cost assistance, by inking contracts with CCPS.
Something else coming for teachers this summer: a store room.
Achievement and student safety only improve with competitive salaries, Bentzel noted, and he assured that rank-change programs do lead to increased pay — whether state budget appropriations improve or not.
