PERRYVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT STAFF LEAVING BECAUSE OF LOW SALARIES

PERRYVILLE -- Low salaries are the No. 1 reason teachers and other staff members leave the Perryville School District, the district's superintendent says.

The superintendent, Dr. Stephen Doerr, said he has been collecting data for the Perryville Board of Education to explain why 80 employees left the district since last school year. The departures marked the largest turnover in a single year in the school district.

About 30 of the district's 100 classified staff left last year. About 50 faculty members, one-fifth of the total faculty, also left.

Doerr said exit interviews with departing employees revealed most people left for better-paying jobs at other school districts or in the private sector.

"It was an unusual year for the district," he said. "For many of them it was a salary issue, so we're having a long-range planning committee look at all this information to review and make recommendations."

Perryville schools rank poorly in salary comparisons with Cape Girardeau, Jackson and 12 other school districts the district competes against in its athletic conference. Doerr said the comparison did not include state averages.

"We're more concerned about the schools around here that we have to compete with in hiring both support staff and certified staff," he said.

Perryville's beginning salary of $23,000 was ninth in the field of 14 districts, and that was its best finish in the comparisons. In four other salary schedule comparisons for more experienced teachers, the district ranked 13th twice and last twice.

"Once you get off the starting salary for a bachelor's degree, we're anywhere from $1,400 to $7,000 below average," said Doerr.

Data are still being collected in the classified staff comparisons, but "our best guess at this time is we are below average in comparisons as well," Doerr said.

Superintendent Dr. Dan Steska told the Cape Girardeau Board of Education this month that a tax increase probably is the only option available if the Cape Girardeau district wants to improve salaries for all positions.

In a comparison with 19 school districts in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois, the Cape Girardeau district ranked in the bottom three for its minimum teachers' salary of $21,005. The district also falls below state averages in nearly every teacher-salary comparison and has seen a 41.5 percent turnover rate for certified staff in the past three years.

In addition, the district is losing classified staff such as janitors, maintenance workers and secretaries to hospitals and private industries that offer larger salaries.