Berry to retire as Rogers School District chief

ROGERS -- School District Superintendent Marlin Berry announced Tuesday he plans to retire after this school year.

Berry, 65, is in his sixth year as Rogers' superintendent. His last day will be June 30.

He made the announcement toward the end of Tuesday's School Board meeting.

Noting he'd been going to school -- either as a student or a school employee -- since he was in kindergarten, Berry said, "I decided I need to try to graduate."

The board met in executive session with Berry for about 20 minutes at the end of the meeting. Nathan Gairhan, board president, said they discussed his retirement and what the next steps are for the district.

The board likely will interview executive search firms to assist in finding Berry's successor, Gairhan said. Berry informed the board of his decision within 24 hours before Tuesday's meeting, Gairhan said.

In 2016, the board hired Ray and Associates of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to help find Berry after former superintendent Janie Darr retired.

"He's done a remarkable job," Gairhan said about Berry. "We're grateful that he spent his last stop in Rogers with our district. We feel like we're very well positioned for his successor to come into a really vibrant, healthy district."

Berry's salary this year is $272,507, according to district financial documents. The district has an enrollment of 15,616, Berry said.

Berry, a Kansas native, has been a school administrator for 40 years. He was hired as a high school principal in Lindsborg, Kan., when he was 26. He went on to serve as a superintendent in three different Kansas school districts for a combined 22 years, finishing with Olathe Public Schools, before moving to Rogers.

It wasn't the stress of dealing with a pandemic that caused him to want to retire now, he said.

"It was just time. Time to bring somebody else in," Berry said.

"I've loved the six years I've been here. Rogers is a good place, and in my opinion they will attract really good candidates because it's a great district in a great part of the state in a good state," he said.

In other business at Tuesday's meeting, the board unanimously agreed to raise its pay rates for substitute teachers by about 30% as the district struggles to fill teacher absences. The new rates are effective through the rest of the school year.

Rogers pays substitute teachers based on their level of education.

The rate for someone with only a high school diploma is going up from $81 to $105 per day. The rate for someone with a college degree is rising from $87 to $115 per day. And the rate for a certified teacher is increasing from $93 to $125 per day, according to district documents.

Roger Hill, assistant superintendent for human resources, said the district filled 73% of teacher absences during the first quarter of this school year. Before the pandemic, that rate was usually somewhere around 95%, he said.

The district was about 26 substitutes short each day of what it needed, on average, during the first quarter, he said.

All schools are struggling to find substitute teachers and Rogers needs to be as competitive as it can be, Hill said.

The district is struggling more this year than last year with having enough substitutes, in part because the district needs more than it did last year. Some of that additional need can be attributed to allowing teachers to do more professional development than they did last year, Hill said.

The district outsources its substitute recruitment and placement services to ESS, a company based in Knoxville, Tenn., that specializes in placing people in daily, long-term, and permanent K-12 school district positions.

The district will use federal covid-19 relief money to cover the additional costs incurred because of the rate changes, Berry said.