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School district will not offer early retirement this year

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Community School District Board of Education voted unanimously on Monday to not offer early retirement incentives for employees who would retire at the end of the 2018-19 school year.

“This is based upon feedback from our senior leadership team,” said Charles City Superintendent Mike Fisher.  “We are in a fiscally strong position this year with increased enrollment. While we like to offer these things when necessary, we also run the risk of losing some outstanding people.”

Since 2008, the district has offered some type of early retirement benefit each year to help reduce staff to cut the district’s budget, with the exceptions of 2011 and 2013 when the policy was suspended. The benefit has been offered to teachers 55 years or older who had worked a minimum of 10-15 years in the district (length of employment has varied from year to year).

Last year, seven teachers accepted early retirement benefits.

Director Jason Walker said he was pleased that the district is in a financial position this year where it is able to keep all the staff who want to remain.

“This will be the first time in my five years on the board that we will not offer this,” Walker said. “To me, that speaks loudly to the ride we’ve been on in this district.”

It was Fisher’s recommendation to not offer early retirement incentives this year. He said that an offer of early retirement is almost always necessity-based, and is primarily used in most school districts as a budget tool.

“My recommendation, both fiscally and philosophically, is that this is something we offer from time to time, and not every year,” said Fisher, who added that due to increased enrollment, budget reductions will not be necessary for 2019-20.

Fisher added that he sought feedback from a few key people who would be eligible for early retirement, and most were not interested this year.

Student board member Isaiah Tilton told the other board members that when teachers leave early, it can impact students in a negative way.

“Sometimes when you’ve gotten rid of teachers early, students won’t take that class, because it’s not the same,” he said, and mentioned some industrial tech teachers who had retired, and those classes were different now, resulting in fewer students taking them.

In other business on Monday, the board heard from Teacher Leader Team coaches Sheila Etherington and Marie Conklin, who presented a short video and a presentation regarding the success of the TLT program at Charles City, and shared perception data from teachers in the district who had used mentor teachers, model teachers, instructional coaches and success coaches. Board members agreed that the TLT program is beneficially to the district.

The board also approved the School Budget Review Committee’s application authorizing the request for supplemental money for increasing enrollment. The board had approved the request for increasing enrollment of $264,196.90 for 38.9 students in late October, but after that amount was approved, enrollment increased by one more student. The district is allowed to modify its request by an increase of $6,791, bringing the total amount to $270,960.90.

Director of Finance Terri O’Brien presented and briefly highlighted some items in the Nov. 2018 monthly financial report. O’Brien told the board she is doing preliminary work on the budget for the next school year.

In other action Monday, the board:

— Approved the resignations of Michael Ludemann, custodian, effective Nov. 13; Valerie Frascht, instructional assistant, effective Dec. 10; and Terri Andrews, instructional assistant, effective Dec. 20.

— Approved the appointment of Julie Molstead, virtual learning coordinator, at a salary of $5,000, starting Dec. 11.

— Approved the appointment of Cynthia Caldwell, custodian, at a wage of $16.09 per hour, starting Jan. 2.

— Approved the appointment of Kelvin Marvin, custodian/driver, at the wages of $16.09 and $16.52 per hour, starting Dec. 11.

— Approved the classified employee transfer of Julie Miller, from Washington secretary to instructional assistant.

— Adjourned to closed session, as allowed under the Iowa Open Meetings Law, to discuss the midpoint evaluation of Superintendent Fisher.

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