Athens school administrators receive raises
By Casey Krautkramer The Record Review received the top four Athens School District administrator contracts on July 10 after filing an open records request on June 18 to superintendent Andrea Sheridan.
In June of last year, three of the top four district administrators voluntarily took a reduction in their salaries by working less days in the 2023-24 school year as part of $900,000 in budget cuts the school district needed to make. Robin Hanson, Maple Grove Charter School principal/special education teacher, was the exception because the Charter School Implementation Grant requires her to work year round.
Residents passed a four year non-recurring operational referendum in the spring of 2023, which allowed the school district to exceed the state-set revenue limits by $1.67 million in the 2023-24 school year and by $1.2 million for each of the next three school years.
The following are the annual salaries that the top four district administrators made in the 2022-23 and 202324 school years and the amount they will earn in their new contracts approved on June 17:
â– Sheridan received a new two-year contract which began on July 1 and ends on June 30, 2026. The school board needs to notify Sheridan before Feb. 1, 2025 if it chooses not to extend her contract for an additional year. If she is not notified before Feb. 1, then her contract will continue for a succeeding two-year period from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027.
Sheridan will earn $127,296 for the current 2024-25 school year. Her salary for the 2025-26 school year can be negotiated with the school board before June 30, 2025, but it can’t be for less than $127,296.
She earned $125,640 in the 2022-23 school year and then voluntarily agreed to reduce her salary to $124,191 in the 2023-24 school year by working less days.
â– Joy Redmann, Athens Elementary School principal, received a new one-year contract which began on July 1 and ends on June 30, 2025. She will earn $94,038 in the current 2024-25 school year. Redmann earned $96,114 in the 2022-23 school year and then agreed to reduce her salary to $91,744 in the 2023-24 school year.
â– Juli Gauerke-Peter, Athens Middle/ High School principal, received a new oneyear contract, which began on July 1 and ends on June 30, 2025. She will earn $90,714 in the current 2024-25 school year, which is the same amount she earned last school year. Gauerke-Peter earned $96,269 in the 2022-23 school year and then voluntarily agreed to reduce her salary to $90,714 in the 2023-24 school year.
â– Robin Hanson works 50 percent as principal and 50 percent as a special education teacher at Maple Grove Charter School in Hamburg. She received a new two-year contract which began on July 1 and ends on June 30, 2026. She will earn an administrator salary of $47,054 and a teacher salary of $41,727, for a total of $88,781, for the current 2024-25 school year.
Hanson’s salary for the 2025-26 school year can be negotiated with the school board before June 30, 2025, but it can’t be for less than $88,781 total between her principal and special education teacher jobs. She earned an administrator salary of $45,899 and a teacher salary of $40,717, for a total of $86,616, in each of the 2022-23 and 202324 school years.
Sheridan was asked after the June 17 school board meeting why Redmann and Gauerke-Peter only received one-year contracts from the school board, while Hanson and her were awarded two-year contracts. Sheridan refrained from answering the question because she said it’s a personnel matter.
Andrea Sheridan
