Matteson said the General Assembly decided to make the provision optional after some districts questioned its vague wording. He said Gov. Pat McCrory and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest supported the legislation, but the government funds to support differentiated teacher pay do not yet exist — they would come in a future budget.
A new partner and a diverse team
Later in the summer, district administrators reached out to the nonprofit organization Battelle for Kids, which helps school districts develop differentiated pay plans. The contract, which the CHCCS Board of Education approved Sept. 4, cost the district $100,000.
Tony Bagshaw, managing director of human capital at Battelle for Kids, said the company doesn’t give schools a preset pay structure model to conform to — it guides schools to find their own based on what’s important to them.
“You’ve got to answer two fundamental questions,” he said. “You’ve got to decide what we value and what we can accurately measure.”
Bagshaw said though Battelle has worked with school districts in New York to Colorado to Charlotte, N.C., with a wide variety of values and resources, the method is the same every time.
In the fall, the CHCCS district’s central office administrators selected the design team — a group of 30 teachers and administrators who will develop the differentiated pay plan.
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“This is something that’s for teachers and supports teachers, so we thought that they needed to have a big part in the design process,” said Todd LoFrese, assistant superintendent for support services.
“The current pay system is very, very old, and it rewards longevity but doesn’t necessarily reward other things that can be seen as impactful beyond years of experience,” said design team member and East Chapel Hill High School teacher Jackclyn Ngo.
Battelle has provided the design team with their strategic compensation learning suite, a series of online courses and readings to educate them on differentiated pay. Part of the learning suite involves looking at models from other districts.
Moving forward
According to the guiding principles they have established so far, CHCCS’ new pay model must reward teachers for exceptional performance, motivate staff to participate in professional development activities and better align compensation with the district’s strategic goals.
LoFrese said he hopes that encouraging and rewarding teachers for engaging in professional development will help eliminate achievement gaps among students.
“I think people would look at the current model and say it doesn’t support what we’re trying to do,” he said.
The team submitted a draft outline to the General Assembly on Wednesday and plans to share a final version of the model with the community in March and present it for the Board to consider for approval in April or May.
LoFrese said it is possible the plan will be adopted by the state in July and receive funding, but if not, the district will still implement it using the local teacher salary supplement. The General Assembly said it might fund seven to eight pilot programs; the CHCCS district plans to ask for that funding.
LoFrese said using only the local supplement to fund differentiated pay will limit the district’s ability to make significant changes to salaries, but he hopes the new model will motivate teachers to improve their teaching and have a positive impact on students.
“Right now, the great majority of employees in the model are in the position where they’re saying, I’m not gonna see a significant increase until I’ve been here for 15 years, maybe 20 years,” he said. “I think a big change that will come out of this is that there will be opportunities to allow people to move forward.”
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