Spencer School Board increases incentives to recruit, retain teachers

By Valorie Brecht With teachers in short supply these days, the Spencer School District is looking for creative ways to strengthen its workforce, including providing scholarship funds to individuals considering pursuing a career in teaching, reimbursing teachers going back to school to gain the appropriate licensure, and increasing sub pay. All of these issues and more were discussed at the last school board meeting July 17.

For one, the school district approved entering into a 66.0301 agreement with the Abbotsford, Colby and Owen-Withee school districts for the “Grow Your Own Scholarship” program. This provides graduating high school seniors pursuing an education degree with up to $16,000 in scholarship funds, with the stipulation that the recipient would commit to working for one of the four consortium districts upon graduation for five years.

“This is something Mike (Endreas) helped to start… We didn’t have any applicants this past year, but it’s good to have,” said District Administrator Jason Gorst.

The board also discussed the guest (substitute) teacher handbook. Jason Gorst said he could not find record of it being officially approved by the board, so he wanted to make sure it was. He asked if the board wanted to increase the school district’s sub pay, which stood at $130 per day. He also offered the option of increasing the sub rate if the sub was a certified teacher; for example, Pittsville and Auburndale pay their subs $190 per day if their subs are certified. He said that could encourage retired teachers to come back and sub. He said he had heard one retired teacher say they didn’t know if they would sub at Spencer if they could go to Auburndale and make $190.

“Another popular recruitment tactic is for every 50 days worked as a sub, you get a $500 bonus. So you could theoretically get three bonuses per year if you stayed with our district,” he said.

He also proposed offering free lunch to substitute teachers, as some other school districts do.

He said Marshfield also had a daily rate of $130, so it wasn’t as if Spencer was out of the range of normal. However, some school districts that offer more include Lakeland Union, Arbor Vitae, Shawano and Three Lakes, which are all at $150 per day for an unlicensed teacher.

Gorst said that over the last five years, the school had paid anywhere between $42,000 to $90,000 for subs per year. That averages out to between two and three subs on any given school day. It all depends on how many medical leaves and maternity leaves there are.

“The vast majority of days, we need somebody,” said Jason Gorst.

He said the school had also considered hiring a full-time sub, but it was too cost prohibitive because the school must then provide benefits.

School board member Becky Gorst said the problem with upping the daily rate is it only helps for a year until the surrounding districts decide to raise their rates too. However, board members Jordan Buss and Barb Wesle were inclined to raise the rates at least a little, or give some incentive for people to choose Spencer.

“I didn’t really realize that $130 figured out to only $16.25 per hour,” said Becky Gorst. “So then I’d go $140 for a full day. I’d keep the bonus across the board; it’s a good motivator to stay with one school district.”

The board ultimately settled on substitute teacher pay of $140 per day for a non-certified teacher, $200 per day for a certified teacher, free lunch for substitutes and offering a $500 bonus for every 50 days a sub works at Spencer during one school year.

The board also discussed providing reimbursement to individuals pursuing their teaching license through an alternative pathway, such as taking courses online to earn their license while teaching under an emergency provision.

“The way we’ve typically done things when it comes to reimbursement for master’s credits or other graduate credits is we reimburse $105 per credit for up to nine credits per year, and there is language to allow us to reclaim those funds if they leave the district within five years,” said Jason Gorst.

“When it comes to these alternative pathway programs — something we’re having to do a lot more of with the teacher certification process and it can be pretty prohibitive — but my thought is, instead of capping it, and I’ll give an example here, one of these programs currently costs $9,000. We can currently reimburse the person $945. What I would like to do is if it’s for a license we need — either we’re hiring them fresh or we’re relocating them within our building to teach a subject and they need to get an additional license — I would like to get more aggressive as far as how much we reimburse, maybe up to all of it, with the stipulation that if they were to leave early, they pay it back.”

He said if such an arrangement could help the school district attract a teacher for a hard-to-find position and get them to stay for five years, it would be well worth the investment. The district has “three or four teachers” currently working to get their license, and he said he would love to be able to tell them that the school district would reimburse a higher percentage of their schooling costs or reimburse all of it, again with the stipulation that they have to remain with the school district for five years from their date of hire. He said he was sure the school would encounter this situation again in the future.

He also mentioned that some school districts have a graduated scale over the five years, so the shorter time span a person stays, the higher percentage they must pay back.

“I say yes, let’s allow you to reimburse but keep the five years, not graduated,” said Becky Gorst.

The board also considered putting a cap on how much the school district would reimburse, considering some private programs could be more than the school district was willing to pay. They also considered having the board give approval for individual reimbursements.

“I will say, it is an ever-changing landscape as far as what programs are offered,” said Jason Gorst.

“A lot of the online programs today are actually cheaper than your traditional programs,” added Elementary Principal Eddie Ikert.

“The thing is, when they’re trying to get somebody, they have to move quickly,” said board member Jordan Buss.

“A lot of times, it’s an add-on license. They already have a license, but it’s not the one we need,” said Jason Gorst.

“I would be OK with leaving it up to administrative approval. It just has to be a reasonable amount,” said Becky Gorst.

Buss made a motion to approve changing the teacher handbook to modify the limit of reimbursement, if it was approved by the administration. That motion was approved unanimously.

Other business The board approved the purchase and installation of carbon monoxide detectors, not to exceed $8,000. The detectors are expected to cost $5,985.

The school district recently adopted a new mission, vision and values. These were decided upon at a special board retreat and announced at the board meeting.

The mission is: “We nurture students to be resilient, collaborative problem-solvers who strive to be lifelong learners.” The vision is: “Graduate successful individuals who will positively contribute to society.” Values are integrity, accountability, teamwork, growth and achievement. The motto is: “Inspire, Educate, and Celebrate.”

“These will lay the groundwork for strategic planning and are things we can go back to,” said Gorst. “I also look at using these in a job interview, such as, ‘How will you inspire a student?’ We wanted to be able live these and make them more concise than we ever had before.”

Ikert also gave a report. He reported that summer school ran pretty smoothly and the last elementary summer school course, being held in the school forest, would wrap up Aug. 1. New teacher in-service days will be held Aug. 8 and 15.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction recently released a reading skills assessment,“aimswebPlus by NCS Pearson,” that aligns with the requirements of 2023 Wisconsin Act 20. School districts will be required to administer this assessment starting with the 2025-26 school year, if not before. Ikert said the elementary school will be implementing this screener right away, as well as the math screener by the same company. The assessments will be used for students in four-year-old kindergarten through fifth grade.

“It’s easier to use one system for reading and math. This will replace FastBridge, that we had been using,” said Ikert.

He also said that the school was planning to host a “haunted forest” event in the school forest this fall.

Jason Gorst said the new 6-12 grade principal, Bill Otte, had been attending meetings and was adjusting well. He announced that the fall sports meeting will be Aug. 5 at 6 p.m. in the high school gym. This meeting is for all student athletes planning to play sports in the 2024-25 school year, and their parents.

Jason Gorst said the school district was working on getting people trained to be compliant with the new requirements for Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

Jason Gorst also provided an update on the Strategic Plan Task Force. He plans to have a maximum of 40 participants on the task force, including school district employees. Applications are due July 31 and those selected to serve on the task force will be notified by Aug. 7. The school district had received 25 applications as of the meeting.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t get more applications than the number of people we wanted, so we wouldn’t have to say no, but I’m glad there’s good interest. And it’s a diverse group of people,” he said.

There will be an intern working at the middle school level this school year.

Jason Gorst said his transition to superintendent had gone well so far, and he had been busy working with theWisconsin Association of School District Administrators. He said the district’s financial services company, Baird, and the district office staff had been helpful in getting him acclimated to his new role. He has started his initial district policy review with Neola, an education consulting firm. Gradually, they will together review all of the district’s policies to make sure they are legally compliant and reflect the school district’s priorities.

“We’re looking to change as few policies as possible; we only want to change what we have to,” he said.

Jason Gorst attended a leader retreat earlier in July, with Otte also involved. He said he had been attending and/or planned to attend local meetings such as the village board, chamber of commerce and Tack Center board, just to make sure people knew who he was and to keep the lines of communication open.

The board accepted the resignation of Fay Nieman, middle school math teacher.

Jason Gorst also explained that a person from Children’s Wisconsin was going to be providing counseling and some rooms would be rearranged to accommodate that.

“So we’re using grant money through just a couple of the mental health grants to pay for that. He will move into what is currently Officer (Tim) Kosar’s office and then (Officer Kosar) will come out to what was the high school teachers’ lounge because we agreed on that lounge, that room off of the DLC (distance learning center). And I think the thought process behind that was, for the mental health help, to put that a little bit off the beaten path, not on the main hallway, so it’s just a little more secluded.” The next Spencer School Board meeting is scheduled for Aug. 21 at 6:30 p.m. in the distance learning center, unless otherwise posted.