Bentonville School Board Approves Substitute Raises

BENTONVILLE -- The School District's substitute teachers will earn a little more money starting next month.

The School Board on Monday approved increased pay rates for substitutes by a 6-0 vote. Board member Brent Leas was absent.

At A Glance

Election Costs

The Bentonville School Board on Monday approved paying a bill of $3,559 for the annual school board elections on Sept. 16. Voters cast a total of 946 ballots in the races for Bentonville’s Zone 4 and Zone 5 seats.

The district’s cost for last year’s election, which saw 11,746 votes cast in one board race and the proposed millage for West High School, was $23,390.

Source: Bentonville School District

Fully certified substitute teachers will see their pay raised from $85 per day to $87 per day, a 2.3 percent increase. Those who are not certified but have a college degree will get a raise from $78 to $81 per day, a 3.8 percent hike.

Noncertified substitutes who have only a high school diploma or GED and those substituting for classified positions will remain at $78 per day.

Administrators proposed the raises because they were experiencing increased difficulty in filling all teacher absences. The district's success rate of finding substitutes for absent teachers ranged from 94 percent to 99 percent last year. There have been a few days this school year the district's fill rate has fallen below that range, according to Dena Ross, executive director of human resources.

The raises will bring Bentonville in line with what the Rogers School District pays. When the change takes effect, the only difference between the two districts will be that Bentonville pays $4 more per day for those with only a high school education and for classified substitutes.

Travis Riggs, board president, said the raises are mainly about "attracting the best people we can attract."

The raises will cost the Bentonville School District about $700 more per week or $12,600 more per semester, according to Ross. The district requires about 335 substitute days per week, Ross said.

The board briefly discussed the idea of offering teachers incentives for good attendance. Board member Grant Lightle said he'd like to explore what kind of savings the district could see from higher teacher attendance.

As of Nov. 30, the district had spent $470,787 on substitutes this fiscal year, about $62,000 less than it had spent at the same point in 2013, according to district financial statements. The district budgeted about $1.7 million for substitutes this fiscal year. The fiscal year runs July 1 through June 30.

In other personnel-related business Monday, the board also unanimously approved creating a new full-time position for a Spanish translator, the first position of its kind for the district.

Administrators had advocated for the move, saying it would improve service to the district's Spanish-speaking families. About 7 percent of the district's 15,466 students are native Spanish speakers.

The Springdale, Rogers and Fayetteville school districts all employ at least one person whose primary or sole duty is translating for Spanish speakers.

The district will begin advertising the position this week and will keep it posted for a couple of weeks, Ross said. The position will pay about $14 per hour.

Bentonville currently uses a phone service for most of its translation needs for all languages. The district pays about $30,000 per year for that service, according to Janet Schwanhausser, federal programs director.

NW News on 12/16/2014

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