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Teachers see significant pay increase in new Greencastle Schools contract
With salary increases anywhere between 8 and 16 percent, the Greencastle School Board approved a new collective bargaining agreement for teachers on Monday.
Recently ratified unanimously by the Greencastle Classroom Teachers Association (GCTA), the agreement also received a 4-0 vote from the Greencastle School Board, with President Mike White making the motion, seconded by Vice President Russell Harvey.
Dale Pierce and Brian Cox joined them in the unanimous vote. Member Ed Wilson was not present for the brief special meeting.
Of note in the new agreement is that it increases the starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree from $35,000 to $40,000. The State of Indiana has mandated that school corporations meet this threshold by the end of next contract year, so representatives of both the teachers and the administration were pleased to be ahead of schedule.
“We were just glad that the corporation took the legislative requirement of the $40,000 minimum and got there now instead of in two years because we weren’t expecting that to happen this year,” GCTA President Kristien Hamilton said.
“We know that we have to hit the $40,000 minimum by the end of next contract year,” Supt. Jeff Gibboney said. “We didn’t have to make all the jump in one year, but we’re making that this year.”
The new contract represents significant increases across the salary schedule for Greencastle teachers, with starting salaries at $40,000 for teachers with a bachelor’s degree, $41,000 for a master’s degree and $42,000 for a doctorate.
Meanwhile, the same three categories top out at $68,275 for bachelor’s degrees, $69,982 for master’s degrees and $71,689 for doctorates.
The new contract also increases the stipends for extracurricular activity sponsors and coaches.
The second-year superintendent attributed the ability to offer the increase to three factors, noting 69 more students than last spring, an overall increase in funding from the state and not replacing some teaching positions and central office staff members.
“All of those things have helped to put us on a continued path to be in better shape financially,” Gibboney said. “We still have work to do — we don’t want to take one step forward and two steps back — but it allowed us to really work to take care of our teachers.”
White was pleased with the combination of factors contributing to the increase.
“It was really kind of a perfect storm with the funding, the increased enrollment and the money savings that we have done over the last year and a half or so,” White said. “That worked in favor of being able to offer this contract this year.”
Besides meeting the $40,000 minimum, Gibboney said the contract also comes close to meeting the upcoming requirement that 45 percent of state tuition assistance be spent on teacher salaries.
The superintendent also emphasized that the corporation wants to keep moving forward with teacher salaries.
“We’re obviously not out of the woods. We want to do what we can to increase that and not get stagnant,” Gibboney said. “But our teachers are happy with it. They’ve gone some time without getting a raise to their base. They’ve received some stipends over the years.”
Hamilton said the contract actually exceeded the expectations of the GCTA.
“We’re very thankful because they went and met our request and more. What we asked for, eventually we got to it and more,” she said. “Not having a raise for at least four years or so, this was a nice way to make that up for us.”
Gibboney and White noted that with the increase to teachers’ salaries, the next focus will be on salary increases for support staff.