- Unionized LCS support staff will receive a $1 per hour pay increase for the entire 2024-2025 school year.
- The final decision was made Tuesday at the Leon County School Board meeting.
- Watch the video to hear how a paraprofessional evaluates the news:
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MISSION:
Our Leon County school support staff are receiving a raise.
At the school board meeting on Tuesday, officials approved a salary and benefit increase for unionized support staff and other support personnel.
The board also approved a plan to improve one of our elementary schools.
Valencia Hargrett has been a teacher’s aide at Sabal Palm Elementary for 30 years.
“We really are the backbone of the teaching community. We support the teachers, so we are behind them 100%,” Hargrett said.
She said her union, the Leon Educational Staff Professional Association, is pleased about the raise this school year.
“We’re fighting for it. The faster we get these raises through, the faster people can put their money in their pockets,” Hargrett said.
The Leon County School Board ratified a proposal for a new salary and benefits package on Tuesday.
Union support staff will receive a $1-an-hour pay raise and two additional days of bereavement leave.
Gretchen Everhart School support staff will receive an additional stipend in addition to their salary increase.
You work with students with intellectual disabilities.
“They work really hard and I find it hard to accept that they make as much as everyone else in the district,” Hargrett said.
Superintendent Rocky Hanna said it was a win for the staff and the district.
“I am simply fulfilling my commitment to this community and our employees to put as many resources as possible into our schools and classrooms and provide raises for our employees,” Hanna said.
Hanna and the board also approved a “recovery plan” for the Apalachee Tapestry Magnet School of the Arts.
This school received a grade of D from the Ministry of Education last school year.
The plan includes monitoring progress, making instructional changes based on student needs, increasing teacher capacity, and more.
“After the pandemic, some schools were more successful than others,” Hanna said.
In Apalachee, test scores improved from 16% in science to 23% after the district implemented similar plans last year.
And at schools across the district, Hargrett said, paras and other support staff are helping students succeed.
“Without us, it would be pretty difficult for the teachers to do it on their own,” Hargrett said.
Hanna said the salary increase for support staff would be retroactive to July 1.
