photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Representatives of the Lawrence Education Association and the Lawrence school district meet for contract negotiations on May 4, 2023.

The Lawrence school board will soon get its first look at a proposal to revamp the pay structure for teachers and provide about $3 million in pay increases — amounting to an average raise of about $3,000.

Should it move forward, the proposed new salary schedule would increase the earning potential for the district’s most experienced teachers, as well as address other problematic areas of the current salary schedule. As the Journal-World previously reported, a committee that has been studying the issue said that the district has been losing teachers at particular times in their careers due to the structure of the district’s pay schedule, which maxes out after 13 years of service. There are also other times in teachers’ careers where the schedule falls behind pay offered by comparable districts in the area.

Matt Ellis, a member of the salary committee and the bargaining team for the teachers union, the Lawrence Education Association, said in an email that discussions about the district’s pay schedule began about two years ago, and the goal has been multifold.

“Our main goals in all of our salary work the past two years has been aimed at moving the district into a more competitive direction in teacher pay, but also to help retain and recruit experienced teachers,” Ellis said. “By adding rows at the bottom of the table, that gives a sizable boost to our most experienced educators while also giving our early and mid-career folks room to move throughout their careers.”

The district has been struggling in recent years to retain and attract teachers. As the Journal-World reported in June 2022, 141 teachers and other certified staff left their positions last school year, representing an increase of more than 2.5 times the number of resignations since the 2019-2020 school year. Contributing factors cited by LEA leadership at the time included compensation, workload and uncertainty surrounding district budget cuts, as well as a lack of support from the state Legislature.

One of the key changes of the new proposed pay schedule would be an extension of the pay raises provided for additional years of service, extending the ability to receive those annual raises from 13 years to 24 years of service for those working toward higher degrees. The result is thousands of dollars more per year in earning potential for those who are working toward or have earned a master’s degree or doctorate, as well as other increases throughout the table.

Under the district’s 2022-2023 schedule, those with a bachelor’s degree receive a starting salary of $42,583 per year, a master’s degree a starting salary of $45,233 per year, and a doctorate a starting salary of $51,833 per year. Currently the schedule maxes out after 13 years of service, at $50,458 per year for those with a bachelor’s degree, $56,483 for a master’s degree, and $66,633 for a doctorate. Teachers who have more than 13 years of experience in the district currently only receive a raise when the district and the union agree to make a general wage increase that affects the entire salary schedule. The newly proposed schedule would increase the maximum pay for those who are working toward or have attained higher degrees to between $52,658 and $77,633.

photo by: USD 497

The current salary schedule for teachers and other certified staff for 2022-2023 school year.

photo by: contributed

A proposed new salary schedule would increase pay for teachers and other certified staff.

Lawrence school board member Kelly Jones, a member of the district’s bargaining team, said in an email that she supports the implementation of a new salary structure for the district’s teachers and other certified staff, as well as its uncertified or classified staff.

“The board is committed to improving salaries and working toward its priority of providing competitive staff wages,” Jones said.

Though Jones said she supports the implementation of a new salary schedule for both employee groups, she also said the board’s capacity to implement pay raises is hampered by the actions of the Kansas Legislature. Jones noted that state lawmakers allocated a $7.5 million funding increase for special education, rather than the estimated $160 million required by state law. When special education is not fully funded, school districts have to spend general fund dollars to make up for the shortfall.

As the Kansas News Service reported, Kansas lawmakers sent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly a contentious school spending bill on April 28 that lets more families use state tax dollars to pay for private schools. The bill spends more than $6.3 billion on K-12 public schools, including $7.5 million in additional funding for special education — about one-tenth of what Kelly proposed in her budget. Kelly has yet to sign or veto the bill.

The union representing the district’s classified staff, such as paraeducators and food service workers, began meeting in mid-April. That union, the Personnel Association of Lawrence-Communication Workers of America, is also seeking to improve wages. PAL-CWA President Hannah Allison-Natale said the union has proposed $7 million in raises for its staff, which would give everyone a raise of $6 an hour. Allison-Natale said that PAL-CWA understands the political situation with the state, and that union representatives expect to continue discussions of the salary proposal and other financial aspects of the contract on June 8, should a K-12 budget be finalized.

“I don’t know what the governor’s going to do with the K-12 budget, so that’s a big question mark,” Allison-Natale said.

The LEA salary committee, which includes members of the district’s teachers union, district administrators and two school board members, has been working throughout the school year to identify issues, examine other pay structures and develop options for a new pay structure. Ellis said the committee brought a couple of options for a new pay model to the full contract negotiations team a couple of months ago, and after much discussion made the decision to extend the pay raises for additional experience from 13 to 24 years of service.

Members of the bargaining teams for LEA and the district have agreed to send the proposal to the school board for initial review, and the board is scheduled to meet in executive session to discuss the proposal as part of its meeting Monday. At this point, the proposal represents a working draft; sending the proposal to the board for initial review is a necessary first step before the LEA and district representatives can further discuss or agree to a salary proposal as part of the contract that will go to the board and LEA members for consideration.

The LEA and district representatives met for contract negotiations most recently on Thursday evening, during which time Ellis went through specifics of the proposed salary schedule and other proposed salary increases at the opening of the meeting. Components of the salary proposal and its funding are as follows:

• A new 24-step salary schedule that lays out pay raises for additional years of service and increased levels of education. The district’s current salary schedule maxes out after 13 years of service. The average raise for teachers and other certified staff would be $3,133.

• Funding for two additional “vertical steps” down the pay schedule, or pay increases provided to teachers for additional years of service. Though those annual pay increases are included in the schedule, the contract is negotiated annually and the district has not funded them for two years, meaning pay has fallen behind the schedule in that regard. The proposal includes one catch-up year for vertical movement for teachers who have previously missed out on those raises and one year of vertical movement for all staff.

• Funding for “horizontal movement” across the pay schedule for additional education, or hours toward and attainment of higher degrees.

• The total estimated cost for the salary proposal is $3.28 million. That includes about $2.86 million for the salary pool additions, including about $1.24 million for the vertical movement; an estimated $186,000 for raises for increased education; and about $236,000 in increased employer costs associated with the proposal, such as funding for benefits. The total cost to fund the pay schedule would be $51.34 million.

Apart from any increases in state funding, the pay increases would be funded through recent budget reductions at the district level, including teacher cuts and school closures. The school board approved reducing middle and high school staff by 50 teachers, which is expected to save the district $3.25 million annually. The board also voted to close Broken Arrow and Pinckney elementary schools. The district has estimated that closing one elementary school would save $300,000 to $400,000 annually, meaning that the two closures are estimated to save the district $600,000 to $800,000 annually. Taken together, the two changes save the district between $3.55 million and $4.05 million annually. The district identified providing competitive pay for both certified and classified staff, such as paraeducators, as one of three priorities for the district’s budget.

The cuts approved ahead of next school year are the second round of multimillion-dollar budget reductions approved in as many years. Last year, the district made $6.4 million in cuts, which included the elimination of 72 teacher positions, an increase in elementary classroom size and the creation of multigrade elementary classrooms. An LEA representative previously said teachers were disappointed in the level of raises they received after those cuts were made. Last year, the district approved a $862,616 increase to the overall salary schedule, which amounted to an $825 pay increase for this school year. Overall, the 2022-2023 contract allocated about $1.05 million more toward the certified staff salary pool, including the $862,616 to increase the overall salary schedule, and $186,000 toward horizontal movement. The union has called for savings from cutting teachers to be used to fund teacher raises.

In addition to an agreement on salary, other sticking points regarding middle school schedule changes must still be addressed before a proposed contract is submitted to LEA union members and the school board for consideration. The school board previously approved those schedule changes, but an LEA committee reviewing the changes determined that they violate the existing contract and should have been negotiated.

The next contract negotiation meeting between district and LEA representatives is scheduled for May 11 at 4:30 p.m. at West Middle School, 2700 Harvard Rd. The school board will have an executive session as part of its meeting Monday to discuss ongoing contract negotiations. The agenda states the executive session will be 30 minutes with no action to follow.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the location for the upcoming LEA-district negotiations meeting.