Contract includes 4% raises

Jay School Corporation teachers will likely be getting the largest raise they’ve received in at least four years.

Superintendent Jeremy Gulley laid out the details of the proposed contract, which includes a 4% raise in base pay for certified staff, during a special meeting of Jay School Board this morning.

The contract is contingent on approval from both Jay Classroom Teachers Association, which is scheduled to vote Friday, and the school board, which will vote during its regular meeting Monday.

Both sides said they were pleased with the negotiations.

“I thought it went really smooth,” said board president Phil Ford, who served on the district negotiating team along with fellow board members Donna Geesaman and Ron Laux. “I thought the fact that we’re sharing information so that you’re starting from the same point financially — we’re in agreement with what that point is — I think that’s beneficial.”

“They went really smoothly, which was a continuation really of the last couple years,” said JCTA president Paul Szymczak in a phone interview this morning. “We’ve gotten to where we all understand the numbers and we see how everything lays out ahead of us. It was a really nice, smooth process.”

The 4% raise — it works out to an average of $2,012 — is contingent on the state funding virtual students at 100%. Virtual students, of which Jay Schools has more than 400, are currently funded at 85%, but Gulley said state legislators have indicated their intention to change that policy.

If the adjustment is not made to fund virtual students at 100%, the raise will be reduced to 2%.

“That’s how much rides on the legislature and the state leaders to follow through on their public commitments and to fund virtual students,” said Gulley.

The contract is retroactive to July 1 and runs through June 30.

The raise would be the largest for local teachers since the 2016-17 contract, which included a base-salary increase of up to $2,000 for teachers who were rated highly effective or effective. Teachers received a $300 raise plus a $300 stipend in 2017-18, a 2% raise in 2018-19 and a 3.5% raise last year.

“I feel really good about it,” said Szymczak. “It’s a sizable raise. It's the best one we’ve had for a long time.”

The contract also includes the addition of a $70 pay rate for those supervising extracurricular events at Jay County Junior-Senior High School. With seventh and eighth graders in the building for the first time this year, resulting in more events, there has been a greater need for personnel to supervise.

Currently, Jay School Corporation teachers have an average salary of $48,295, just above the average of adjacent Indiana districts ($48,250), Gulley said. The state average is $53,483.

The corporation’s starting salary of $37,903 is highest among adjacent Indiana districts, he added.

Gulley credited the corporation’s consolidation efforts as part of the reason the 4% raise is possible. Through building closures and consolidations, the corporation has reduced its footprint from 10 buildings to seven — the junior-senior high school, five elementary schools and the General Shanks building that now houses pre-school. It has resulted in a reduction of about 45 teaching positions over the last five years.

“We knew that we could not go forward with the way the district was structured,” he said. “The schools we had needed to be right-sized for our enrollment. And in doing that, the efficiencies created allow for resources to be put into employees.”

Board members Chris Snow, Ford, Geesaman and Laux, absent Mike Shannon, Jason Phillips and Krista Muhlenkamp, also gave permission for a public auction of surplus school equipment. The auction will be held at 4 p.m. Friday at East Jay Elementary School.

Gulley also, on behalf of the corporation, expressed sympathy to Muhlenkamp and her family. Her 15-year-old son, Jake, died in an off-road vehicle accident late Friday. Jake’s funeral was Wednesday.

“Krista is a friend, colleague … It’s just tragic,” said Gulley. “There was certainly no lack of care and love from the community that filled (Holy Trinity Catholic Church). It was sad, but it was also important that that family knew that we were all in absolute prayer and support.”