Shawnee Mission’s board of education has updated secondary teacher stipends for those who teach more than five classes to align with the district’s new salary schedule for educators.
Why it matters: This is an update to an existing memorandum of understanding that ensures secondary teachers are only teaching five out of seven classes per day — and those who agree to teach six are compensated more.
Background: The district last year originally entered the MOU with National Education Association Shawnee Mission for compensation benefits for secondary teachers who teach six out of seven classes.
- The MOU was the culmination of two years worth of sometimes intense teacher contract negotiations between the district and NEA-SM.
- Shawnee Mission updated the MOU in May of this year to reflect ongoing efforts to reduce secondary special education teacher workloads.
What’s new? The district once again updated the MOU at its regular meeting on Aug. 8 to align with this year’s new master salary schedule.
- That means full-time secondary general education teachers who are asked by building administration and agree to teach a sixth period will be paid $5,348 annually for that extra period.
- If the extra period is for just one semester during the 2022-23 school year, the amount would be $2,719, according to district documents.
- Overall, this is an increase of about $100 over last year’s MOU.
Zooming out: This update followed an agreement between the district and NEA-SM finalizing a new teacher contract for the 2022-23 school year.
- The agreement outlines employment provisions, professional growth, grievance procedures, temporary and extended leaves of absence, contracts and salaries and professional employee work schedules.
- Michael Schumacer, the district’s associate superintendent of human resources, said at the Aug. 8 meeting that he’s proud of the where the district and NEA-SM landed.
Key quote: “It’s taken time,” Schumacher said when asked how the two parties made strides in coming to terms. “We’ve been transparent with each other, we’ve disagreed at times, but at the end of the day — at the end of the last three contracts — we’ve come away with doing things that are really great for our professional teachers.”
