With the end of the 2023-24 school year, Wright City R-II School District has made some changes to their continuous school improvement plan to improve teacher retention and recruitment.
In …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, or you are a print subscriber who had access to our previous wesbite, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you have not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
If you are a current print subscriber and did not have a user account on our previous website, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
With the end of the 2023-24 school year, Wright City R-II School District has made some changes to their continuous school improvement plan to improve teacher retention and recruitment.
In this updated plan that the school board recently approved, a 3% increase will be added to base salary schedules, with an additional 1% increase to teachers that have worked 11-20 years and another additional 1% to teachers that have worked 21 or more years.
A 5% increase will be added to the base salary for support staff and administration and the market value will increase for the communications director.
The board also approved a motion to change two sick leave days to two personal days, which will convert two existing sick days onto two additional personal days.
The board made this motion to give the staff more flexibility on when they can take a personal day.
The board did approve the change in personal days, but Berger noted that the majority of their focus is towards the salary.
“One of our focus areas is teacher retention and recruitment, so we’re focused in all areas of what will make a teacher embrace Wright City and stay with us,” Former Superintendent Chris Berger said.
Berger noted that there is currently a nationwide teacher shortage issue and Wright City School District wants to stay competitive with other schools in the area.
Berger noted that the issue had not been with hiring good, new teachers. He said the front of the base salary was attractive, but once the staff had been working for five or 10 years, the base salary was not competitive with other schools.
With the approved plan, Wright City R-II is currently above the baseline salary of the Fort Zumwalt School District for a year one teacher with a bachelor's degree by nearly $2,000.
However, the gap starts to close in more after year six and Fort Zumwalt surpasses Wright City. The gap has been closed more in comparison to last year, but the board will remain focused on staying competitive with other regional school districts.
“While we don’t have the tax base of Wentzville or Fort Zumwalt or those larger school districts, we do think we can close that gap,” Berger said. “We’ve made an effort to do that in the last four years with success in closing that gap.”
