Minutes 04-28-2015 - Laserfiche WebLink

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