The Overton County School Board will implement a differentiated pay plan, designed to help fill hard-to-staff positions.
Overton County Director of Schools Kim Dillon said this year’s plan pays out stipends ranging from $1,000-$5,000. Dillon said she hopes the stipends are enough to fill and keep behavior, CDC, and special education teachers.
“We have found it very difficult to keep teachers, to want to stay in that area,” Dillon said. “And it takes a specific endorsement in order to be able to be in the CDC class, and so we don’t want to lose those teachers.”
The board also approved adding the instructional position for the Gifted Program to the pay plan. Dillon said the Gifted Program provides specialized education to advanced students.
“We used to have a gifted teacher, and now we have, we are doing gifted in the schools, so we are doing it a little bit different,” Dillon said. “But someone here at the office has taken on that extra responsibility to be over those IEPs and write those IEPs for those gifted students, and to be over that program.”
Dillon said the school board is looking at other positions to potentially add in next year’s pay plan.
“High school math, inclusion Sped teachers, there’s different areas that we are looking at that seem to be a constant issue as far as staffing certified personnel,” Dillon said. “Pre-K sped classrooms, those are also hard. So we are looking at some other things that we want to look at adding into the differentiated pay plan, just because it is hard to find teachers in certain areas.”
Dillon said this year’s budget is able to handle stipends should they need to pay those out. However, Dillon said the budget will be something they have to monitor moving forward when considering a new differentiated pay plan moving forward.