Tuesday evening the Plymouth Community School Board meeting conducted their monthly meeting in the Administration Building board room.

The school board considered the tentative 2021-22 Master Contract. 

Superintendent Mitch Mawhorter briefly highlighted the 19-page contract between the school corporation and the Plymouth Education Association, teacher’s union.

The tentative agreement includes at least a $1,500 increase to the base salary of all qualifying returning teachers. The superintendent said both sides wanted to raise the minimum salary to $40,000 as they have been directed by previous legislation.

If the school board ratifies the contract next Tuesday, in a special meeting Mawhorter said, “All staff below $40,000 will be bumped up to that level.”  Teachers were making $37,000 to start.        

Superintendent Mawhorter told the school board, “Over the years, staff members salaries had become disorganized, hard to follow or make sense of, and unfair to some while too fair to others.”  He said it was the goal of both parties to try and clean it up.  They plan to bring staff members more closely inline to their true place in the scale found in the contract.

He said over the years, incoming staff have been able to negotiate their salaries which sometimes would give them higher pay than someone with more experience. 

Mawhorter also told the school board members, “The two sides agreed to correct the ECA situation which left the corporation in a liable position by not having the right number of staff compared to the students participating.  Plus it was agreed upon by both sides to work together on ECA to prepare for next year’s negotiations.”     

Laura Kruyer representing the Plymouth Education Association (PEA) commented during the meeting saying, “This is a good contract.  This contract does reflect the aspects that the superintendent had mentioned.  What it does is it honors our teachers who are teaching here at Plymouth Community Schools.  It has a catch-up salary cluse in it and for many years our teachers have fallen behind to the point where new people coming into the corporation could jump over them in salaries.  This proposed contract looks to fix that.”  Kruyer also said she believes the new contract will help to attract and retain good quality teachers at Plymouth.  She encouraged the board to vote yes on the contract next Tuesday.    

The school board will conduct a special session on Tuesday, November 9 at 7 p.m. to ratify the Master Teacher Contract.