Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
During a Yelm Community Schools board meeting on Thursday, Aug. 28, superintendent Chris Woods announced that the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the Educational Service District (ESD) will present information about binding conditions during a board meeting on Thursday, Sept. 25.
Specifically, Woods said OSPI and the ESD will be included on the agenda with a presentation, and that all five school board directors would be able to ask the agencies questions about binding conditions and anything pertinent to the topic.
“They’re going to come and present specifically on Yelm Community Schools, and also the process around binding conditions. It’s very well laid out on their website, but they’re going to come and it’ll be an opportunity for them to share with you,” Woods said. “I think it’s good for our community to hear from them and hear exactly what the process is, and what happens moving forward. They’ll go into a little more detail on financial oversight, the committee, dissolution, all of that.”
Additionally, Woods noted that Denise Hendrickson, school board president, has attended regular binding conditions meetings with him, OSPI and ESD — including on Thursday, Aug. 28. He said they’re happy to present to the YCS community.
“They do not want to see a district stay on binding conditions. They certainly do not want to see districts go to dissolution. Their goal is they’re going to do everything they can to help,” Woods said. “They’re really limited, especially when you saw here that 85% of our expenditures are (staff). That’s just a cost that every district has to pay and what we’re funding out from the state — that gap from where we’re funded and where people are being paid is getting wider and wider.”
Woods also spoke about the two groups YCS is bargaining with, including Public School Employees (PSE). He said the next bargaining sessions with PSE are scheduled for Monday, Sept. 8 and Wednesday, Sept. 10.
“We also have deeds scheduled with our OP group as well,” Woods said. “Those are coming up on September 4th, 5th, 11th, 16th, 18th and 30th. So those are scheduled out.”
Additionally, the superintendent presented information about Policy 5310, which was unanimously passed by the Yelm School Board in July. After passing the policy, the district’s administrative employees will receive a 2.5% pay increase, in addition to potential increases based on a step scale. The employees begin their tenure at step one and progress through steps two through seven based on experience. Each step increase presents a 3% pay raise. If the YCS employees are already at step seven, they would just receive the new 2.5% pay increase.
“I also wanted to bring you some data. There were some questions from you and from others, when you agreed to give everybody on policy 5310 a 2.5% increase, there were also questions about step increases. With every year of experience, you get to go up a step. Why did people on 5310 get to go up a step, and how does that relate?” Woods asked.
“I pulled some data, and in the YEA group 194 people get to go up a step this coming year. PSE, 99 people get to go up a step this year. In our coaches group, 25 are going up a step. Pro B group 16 are going up a step. Thirteen certificated administrators are going up a step. Six classified administrators, and three non-representative staff. You can see in every single bargaining group across the district, every employee group has some sort of step. Whether it’s seven steps or 20 steps, every single group in our district, if they qualified and had not maxed out their steps, everyone got to go up a step. I wanted to clarify that, and give an update on negotiations — which have been very positive. I think there’s been good communication with both groups, and we’ll continue that starting next week.”
