Agenda - 06-16-2015 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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10 1 percent. He said the Project ADVANCE supports switching to a model that is not based on 2 years of service. 3 Commissioner Dorosin asked if a teacher would make more money working for OCS or 4 CHCCS. 5 Chair Halkiotis said CHCCS. 6 Tom Forcella said at entry level teaching positions, the two Districts are fairly equal. 7 Commissioner Dorosin said if Orange County is competing with Wake County, is it also 8 competing with itself between the two Districts. 9 Chair Halkiotis said a teacher working in OCS for twenty five years will max out at a 14 10 percent supplement versus the 25 percent in CHCCS. He said if teachers are looking for 11 money, they go south; if they are not, they go north. 12 Todd LoFrese said CHCCS is seeking to decouple longevity and teacher pay. He said 13 rather CHCCS seeks to link teacher pay to professional development and its implementation in 14 the classroom, as well as positive student results. 15 Commissioner Dorosin referenced the expansion request slide in the Power Point, 16 asking about the $236,500 for living wage adjustments. He asked for context around these 17 figures and if contracted staff positions are included in this figure. 18 Todd LoFrese said a large portion of this financial request is linked to a classified 19 employment compensation study that was conducted last year, which identified 20 recommendations regarding current market rates for classified staff and what they should be 21 paid. He said an example is teachers' assistants, who are all being paid the same amount 22 whether they are in a kindergarten class or a self-contained Exceptional Children's (EC) class, 23 although in the latter they may serve children with greater needs. He said one of the 24 recommendations was to provide a higher rate of pay for teacher's assistants in the EC 25 classrooms. He said about $36,000 of the requested sum is for the living wage adjustment to 26 insure that every District employee is earning at least the County living wage number. He said it 27 does not apply to District contracted services, which include cleaning services and child nutrition 28 management services. 29 Chair Kelly said there has not yet been a full discussion about the contracted 30 employees. 31 Commissioner Dorosin said, based on the aforementioned study, there are some District 32 employees who will need salary increases in order to bring them up to the living wage, exclusive 33 of the contracted employees. 34 Commissioner Dorosin said the ADVANCE model is interesting. He said there has been 35 some controversy about the school grades statute and how much emphasis it puts on high 36 stakes test results. He asked if the ADVANCE model will move away from the high stakes 37 testing outputs and move towards growth. 38 Tom Forcella said the original goal was to look more at the professional growth of 39 CHCCS teachers. He said this focuses more on the growth of the students during a school year 40 rather than their test scores. 41 Debbie Piscitelli said the goal is to teach students how to drive. She said the instructors 42 are visibly promoting classes throughout the year at various times. She said the instructors aim 43 to be very flexible regarding scheduling of road instruction, working with the students' schedules 44 and extracurricular activities. She said once the $40 fee was instated, her first concern was to 45 insure that students who had financial struggles were being offered flexibility in submitting their 46 payments. 47 Commissioner Price asked if there is anything that is an obvious immediate cut. 48 Todd LoFrese said no, those discussions have not occurred at this time. 49 Commissioner Pelissier asked for the teacher turnover rate in both counties, and if the 50 teacher turnover rate was different from that of the year prior.