School Board Approves Support Staff Leave Policy, Reviews Substitute Contract, and Updates Salary Scale

At its May 28 meeting, the Warren County School Board approved changes to its support staff leave policy, reviewed a revised substitute staffing contract with ESS, and adopted updates to the 2025–2026 salary scale. The session included policy refinements, financial planning under uncertain budget conditions, and efforts to provide flexibility and equity across the school division’s workforce.

Human Resources Director Rachel Drake.

Final Approval for Support Staff Leave and Unpaid Absence Form

On the third reading, the board approved two items: GDBD, which governs support staff leaves and absences, and GDBD-E3, the form used to request unpaid leave.

“This is our third reading,” said Human Resources Director Rachel Drake. She acknowledged Assistant Superintendent Dr. Charles Costner, who presented the policies at the previous meeting.

With a second and no further discussion, the board approved both policies unanimously.

Substitute Staffing Contract Includes 3% Increase and “Floater” Role

Drake next introduced the first reading of the 2025–2026 substitute staffing contract with ESS. “So this would be the first review of the contract with ESS to renew them for next year,” she began. “We did make a few changes.”

Among those changes was a 3% increase built into the agreement. “This current contract we have for FY24–25 does say that we will have a 3% increase. That’s just probably cost of living or inflation in general,” Drake said.

She also explained a significant revision requested by the school division: “They did remove the language that we need written approval or that they could charge us for hiring their employee to be ours. So I appreciate that.”

A major operational improvement, she said, is the addition of a “floater” substitute category. “What a floater would do is they could pick up a floater assignment, and we could kind of plug and play where we need them to be, so that way they’re not committed to one school.” Drake clarified that she had proposed the new floater option: “That was my request.”

Board members inquired about ESS’s administrative markup. When asked about the profit rate, Drake confirmed, “30.9? Yeah. Okay… It’s the same. 30.9. Three percent increases on the payments… The subs are getting paid.”

She told the board she needed to submit any contract edits to ESS immediately: “If there are changes, I would need to present that tonight to them, so hopefully their attorney can assist, because then I have to have it uploaded Friday for our next Wednesday meeting.”

Salary Scale Adjusted for Equity and Educational Credentials

The board also voted to approve an updated 2025–2026 salary scale that includes a 3% cost-of-living raise, adjustments to supplemental pay for coordinators, and a new structure to recognize instructional assistants (IAs) with advanced degrees.

“After we sent out contracts and the pay scale for everybody to review, I had probably about 300 emails,” Drake said. “It was really nice to get those to help provide clarity.”

Among the most notable changes was expanding educational supplements for IAs. “We’ve had two IAs come to us. They have their master’s degree, and we stop our current pay scale at a bachelor’s,” she said. “So we do pay our teachers and other positions to have additional education, so just mirroring that with our instructional assistants.”

She outlined the structure: “For an instructional assistant to have their associate’s and/or be highly qualified—which is their Praxis or Parapro—they would get $1,000. That’s current. The bachelor’s gets $1,900. The additions would be if they have their bachelor’s plus 15 at $2,500 and then their master’s at $3,300.”

Drake emphasized that these changes align instructional assistant pay with that of other roles: “Why pay somebody less for doing the same role?”

She also proposed a modest increase for two part-time secretaries. “They get $16 an hour, and so we had requested in our budget meeting to get a different scale for them. At the moment, we’re not able to do that,” Drake said. “So I would like to see at least them get the 3% increase—so it’s about 48 cents—that’d be $16.48 for the both of them. But at least they would be included, as they do work 24 to 30 hours a week for us.”

Drake estimated the impact of the changes. “Right now, I mean, we’re looking at a little over maybe ten grand,” she said. “But if more instructional assistants come out that we don’t know about because it hasn’t been offered, we would.”

Board members expressed concern about making decisions before knowing the county’s funding allocation. “We’re sort of coming down to the wire for the budget request,” Board Member Tom McFadden said. “It’s tough to make a decision about how things are going to affect the budget when we don’t even know what our budget is.”

Drake responded, “I think, you know, giving some hope to the part-time—to let them know they would at least get that 3%—I think it’s fiscally affordable.”

She added that turnover would help mitigate the financial impact: “When you do have a teacher retire, you’re definitely not going to be pulling somebody in with that many years of service into that same position.”

Following discussion, the board moved to approve the new salary structure.