Clinton School Board OKs teacher pay agreement
Apr. 17—The Clinton School Board on Monday ratified its agreement with the Clinton Education Association teachers' union for the 2024-2025 school year to reflect teacher pay that's in line with new tate minimums required by law.
"We hit the state mandates of $47,500 for a beginning teacher and $60,000 for any teacher with at least 12 years of experience," Clinton Community School District Superintendent Gary DeLacy said. "And then all veteran teachers got at least $1,400 added onto their contract."
Overall, teachers will receive a 3.18% package increase.
DeLacy also said that teachers are to receive an equity payment that is not a part of the contract.
"We're adding a $1,000 equity payment for those teachers that got the $1,400, so they would get up to $2,400," he said. "But those teachers that got more than $2,400 through the teacher pay piece did not get that equity bonus."
The rate of base wages, as required by law, increased by 3% as well.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 2612 into law last month after a 30-18 vote passed it through the Senate.
The new law sets beginning teacher annual salaries at $50,000 in year two of the law's implementation and the minimum salary of teachers with 12 or more years of experience at $62,000.
The law also includes measures to provide funding to increase the wages of paraeducators and other educational support staff, makes changes to Area Education Agencies that have been met with controversy, and sets the rate of state supplemental aid for the upcoming school year at 2.5%
The terms of the agreement ratified by the school board are what were initially proposed by the district to the CEA in prior negotiations.
The CEA's initial proposal to the district included that the "CEA would like all certified educators to receive a fair compensation for the work they do every day in the classroom and beyond for the students of the CCSD," that the "CEA would like both retention and attraction of teachers to be considered in the contract settlement," and that the "CEA would like the CCSD [to] make the settlement as equitable as possible within the constraints provided by State law."
Negotiations for the 2023-2024 school year resulted in a 3.5% base wage increase with an additional $2,000 for returning teachers, funded by a 3% increase in state supplemental aid for Iowa's public schools which due to slightly decreased enrollment this last school year equated to 2.76%, or $739,255, for the district.
