CC district to reconsider offering early retirement for staff

Board denies request to share superintendent part-time

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

As hundreds of teachers and other public employees lobbied Iowa legislators at the state capitol on Monday night, members of the Charles City school district’s Board of Education opened their meeting with words of support for district staff.

Superintendent Dr. Dan Cox asked the board to reconsider a previous meeting’s decision to not offer early retirement to district staff this year.

“With everything that we have going on in Des Moines, nationally when it comes to education and teachers being under attack, public schools being under attack –– I think this is something positive that we can do for employees,” Dr. Cox said.

“Speaking from personal experience, it’s a pretty tough time to be a public employee right now,” board Vice President Jason Walker said. “Every which way you turn, people point at you and say, ‘hey, you’re overpaid and you’re underperforming’ … that wears on people.”

Walker called the collective legislation reforms proposed by Republican legislators a “morale killer”, adding that Charles City district staff members are feeling “attacked” and underappreciated.

“A happy and engaged staff equals happy and engaged students,” he added. “A good morale and culture climate in our school buildings translates to, in my opinion, better performance by our students, and that’s our goal and our objective.”

Member Lorraine Winterink asked board members to consider meeting district staff and educators for lunch once a month to learn more about their jobs and concerns.

The board will take action on Dr. Cox’s suggestion at an 8 a.m. meeting on Wednesday at the district administration’s 500 North Grand office.

Riceville requests to share superintendents

Board of Education members denied a request from the Riceville school district to share the superintendent position part-time.

Dr. Cox brought a formal request from the Riceville Board of Education to Monday’s meeting. Sharing the superintendent position would have saved Charles City about $50,000, or roughly eight students worth of funding, Dr. Cox told the board. The proposal would have called for Dr. Cox to spend 20 percent of his time with the Riceville district –– either one day or two half days a week. The current Riceville superintendent is retiring at the end of the 2016-17 school year.

The school district has previously shared a superintendent with Riceville, board member Lorraine Winterink said. While she believed it benefitted the district at the time, the timing with district projects isn’t right, Winterink said.

“I really would prefer to see our superintendent stay within our district,” Winterink said. “We have a lot of things we are trying to get done here, we’re trying to move the needle on so many things … what are we going to do with our high school, state reports just came out, I’m really not in favor of doing this.”

“Five days a week is sometimes not enough time to get what we have on our agenda out,” member Robin Macomber said. “Sometimes money can’t buy time. Time is the impossible thing to buy.”