Worth County School Board Raises Base Pay to $26,100

The Worth County School Board, acting on recommendations by the teachers committee and the administration, voted on a package of raises that includes bringing the starting pay over $26,000. Worth County is third in the conference in overall pay, meaning that they take good care of the teachers who are there. But they are 8th in the conference in starting pay. The board also voted to increase the stipend for insurance as well as give a 4% raise to non-certified staff for a total estimated cost to the district of $52,358.
The school will continue with Midwest Public Risk; they are part of a group plan. Insurance rates for the school went up by 2% this year, which compares to a 19% increase by the West Nodaway School District, which is on another plan.
Main areas of concern include declining enrollment as well as state and federal budget cuts. There were fears that federal funding for schools could go down as much as 90% over the next decade regardless of who gets elected this year and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education cut the school’s funding by $50,000 while giving St. Louis schools a raise of $300,000 this year. Since the legislature did not make certain funding decisions, that was left up to DESE. There are only 22 kindergartners in next year’s class, meaning that enrollment will be down by 15 in the elementary to 167.
High School attendance was up to almost 95%. It used to be 93.06% a few years ago, but outgoing principal Dale Healy cited better communication with parents as a reason that attendance has gone up.
This is the last year for the SOAR grant for the school. The school is in the process of applying for a new grant for the school. There were 70 enrolled last year and 50 stayed on for the whole year.
A new storage shed is being built to replace the trailer that is currently being used to store equipment by the practice field. The ‘Lil Tigers paid for much of the expenses and will share the building with the high school program.
Among policies passed, the school will conduct random drug tests for bus drivers. Testing will be automatic in the event of an accident costing the school over $500.
The track runways are in bad shape and the board voted to replace them at a cost of $9,000 from money saved up over the years from track meets that the school has hosted. The school will try and get by with the present track, but will need to think about replacing it in 2-3 years although it has held up well for the 10 years it has been used.