Jackson teachers to receive small pay increase

Teachers in the Jackson School District will receive a total 1.7 percent salary increase in the coming school year, similar to the slight increase they received in 2010-2011.

The Jackson School Board on Tuesday approved a 1 percent increase for vertical movement on the certified employee salary schedule, with higher raises for teachers who have completed advanced education on the horizontal side of the chart.

"We all wish we were in a different time where we could reward our people like we'd like to," superintendent Ron Anderson said of the district's 300-plus teachers.

While state K-12 education funding remains effectively flat in 2011-2012, what many districts consider a fiscal victory in trying economic times, expenses continue to rise. Many Missouri public school districts are holding the line on pay increases.

"This is basically a conservative district, and it always has been," Anderson said. "We look at our utilities, we look at anything to maximize our expenditures. We're what we call stable historically, and we hope that continues."

The Cape Girardeau School Board last month approved a total salary increase of 1.24 percent for certified employees, with average teacher pay rising 2.53 percent, and administration salary up 2.38 percent. Wages were frozen in 2010-2011.

The salary increases come as the districts finalize their operating budgets for the coming school year, documents expected to go before the school boards by the end of the month.

In other business, the Jackson School Board approved bus routes for special needs summer school. The programs began this week and run in two three-week sessions, broken up by the Fourth of July week. Jackson's public schools serve 285-square miles, so summer school bus routes can be quite spread

out.

"It's really quite complex," Anderson said. "Our transportation folks do a good job to be as efficient as they can and at the same time provide high quality programs."

The district does not provide transportation to traditional summer school students.

Board members also approved the sewer easement to the city of Jackson, for property near the Jackson High School. It's all part of the school's approximately $7.9 million Phase II construction project, quickly nearing completion.

mkittle@semissourian.com

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