School District Administrators, Department Directors Getting Raises

The Glenwood Board of Directors approved 3.75 percent raises for the school district’s department directors and administrators.

In a unanimous 5-0 vote at Monday’s meeting in the Glenwood Community High School Media Center, the board formally approved the total package increases effective for the 2015-2016 school year. The raises cover 13 district employees – seven directors and six administrators – and comes on the heels of 4 percent raises for the district’s teachers and non-union classified staff.

The 3.75 figure was come to by careful evaluation by the district, according to Superintendent Devin Embray. After looking at the monies available to each employee group following negotiations and then deciding what the total package amount – salary plus benefits – is for each of those groups of district employees, raises were set accordingly.

“We try to go below that amount for administrators and directors,” Embray said. “When I first came here there was a freeze on administrators and directors for a couple years and a couple years where it was barely anything. We gaged it and tried to put it into a ballpark where it’s something that’s a fitting response to the work they do and not above any of the other groups we give raises to.”

Each director and administrator will get a different raise amount based on their current salary. Northeast Principal Joan Crowl will see the largest salary bump at just over $4,000 while all but five will see $3,000-plus raises next year.
Embray said the raises reflect the appreciation the board has for the long work of the department directors and administrators.

“They do a great job leading their programs and their areas and they put in a lot of long hours just like everybody does in our district,” he said. “They’ve worked well together and with their staff to try and move their building and the district forward. I think this is an adequate response to the work they do. That said, everybody puts in a lot of hard work so it’s hard to put a dollar amount on that.”

Other Board News
* The board approved an agreement with the city of Glenwood to move access to a well off a recently purchased district property.

“When we first planned to purchase the property we didn’t realize there was a well agreement between the city, the blue house (now owned by the district) and the neighbor property just to the east,” Embray said.

The property currently owned by the district on Hershey Avenue, just north of the high school, houses the pump and pressure tank that provides water, via a nearby city owned well, to an adjacent property. The district plans to raze the house on the property but to do so, must first move the well access, pump and pressure tank.

“There was an ‘in perpetuity’ agreement between the three (properties) that they share all the costs so that these two properties could be serviced by the well,” Embray said. “When we purchased the property, we didn’t have an intended use for the house itself; we bought it to relieve our property line a little bit with the hope of building something there in the future. Our plan right now is to raze the house and turn it into green space.”

Moving access to the well is expected to cost $7,000 and should begin this summer, Embray said.

* The district announced the planned Google Summit has been cancelled. Originally set to run June 22-23 at Glenwood Community High School, Embray said attendance registrations was not meeting the district’s threshold to host the event that would have had speakers discussing Google apps and technology integration in classrooms.
Embray didn’t rule out hosting an similar educational technology event next year, perhaps less Google-specific.

“I think people might have been Google-ed out,” Embray said, adding the first two years of the Google Summit in Glenwood drew nearly 500 attendees. “We’re trying to come up with a new angle for the conference next year around competency-based education and standards-based grading using technology. It might not be a registered trademark conference like with Google. It’ll probably be more of a competency-based regional conference.”

* The board approved the purchase of two new activity buses and a one-ton pick-up truck.

* The board renewed its contract with the Glenwood Police Department to provide a school liaison officer for truancy for the 2015-2016 school year. Officer Aaron Johansen will serve as truancy officer for Glenwood during the upcoming school year.