District Considers Longer Hours for Assistant Teachers

VANCLEAVE, Miss. (AP) — Assistant lecturers in Mississippi will obtain a $2,000 pay increase beginning July 1, however one college district might make its assistants work an extended schedule.

A proposal awaiting consideration by the Jackson County Faculty Board would prolong assistant lecturers’ work from 180 days a yr to 187, the Solar Herald reported.

Two Gulf Coast legislators and state Superintendent of Schooling Carey Wright condemned the proposal, saying it diminishes the increase. Assistant lecturers are paid on an hourly foundation, and if the proposal is authorised, these in Jackson County must work extra hours to obtain the cash.

“Nobody would dream you would wish to place one thing within the legislation to forestall this,” Home Schooling Committee Chairman Richard Bennett, a Republican from Lengthy Seashore, advised the newspaper.

Bennett mentioned lecturers’ assistants are “essentially the most underpaid, underappreciated folks on this system. That is an insult to these aides.”

Throughout their session earlier this yr, Mississippi legislators authorised pay raises for lecturers and assistant lecturers. The assistants’ base pay from the state is now $15,000 and it’ll go to $17,000. Some college districts complement the salaries.

Jackson County Superintendent John Strycker mentioned in a information launch Thursday that the $2,000 increase will deliver the wage for the district’s assistant lecturers to $19,800. He mentioned $1,250 of the increase will go towards growing the hourly price of pay and $750 would go towards compensating for the extra seven work days.

“The varsity district’s intention of accelerating trainer assistants to 187 days was to align their work schedules with lecturers,” Strycker mentioned.

Strycker says the college board might contemplate the plan in June — and he doesn’t anticipate it to be authorised.

Rep. Manly Barton of Moss Level, whose district consists of a part of Jackson County, mentioned it was “completely inappropriate” of Strycker to recommend extending the assistant lecturers’ hours.

Wright additionally took subject with the proposed change.

“Mississippi educators have been underpaid for fairly a while, and our state Legislature responded to that drawback this yr by passing an historic trainer pay increase invoice,” the state superintendent mentioned in a press release.

Assistant lecturers work in elementary college lecture rooms to assist lecturers. They’re paid considerably lower than lecturers and aren’t required to have a university diploma.

In Jackson County, assistant lecturers are paid an hourly wage that varies in response to expertise, starting from $12.36 for a brand new worker to $20.95 for one with 35 years’ expertise.

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