A discounted, in-house daycare facility may be a possible addition to the Gasconade County R-2 School District to assist in finding and keeping teachers and staff.

District officials and the Gasconade Count R-2 Board of Education discuss ways to recruit, employ and maintain qualified staff during each monthly board meeting. Along with updates on the existing programs, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Staci Johnson proposed an in-house daycare that would charge a discounted daily rate to children ages zero to three as older children may attend preschool before being enrolled in kindergarten.

“After the board retreat, I went to research some of the teacher retention strategies that we had talked about,” Johnson said. “The three really we focused on were the addition of possible on-sight childcare for our staff; the implementation for Career Ladder as a program; and also in general the discussion about salary increases that the board has every year in the spring.”

Johnson presented results from a survey that she had submitted to surrounding school districts.

“It’s obviously a popular idea to have an on-sight childcare that would be available at a reduced rate. There are some things we would have to work through,” Johnson said. “We could anticipate that if this was something we were going to do next year, we would have about 12 children under the age of three to start the year, with a capacity of about 24 total. Half of those would be under the age of two.”

Staff members utilizing the service would be charged $10 per day, which would help the district recoup about $40,000 for the school year. The average daily rate in the area is $20 to $25.

“There’s some other things I am still looking into,” Johnson said. “There are several other districts that have this as a benefit to their staff, though each one sets it up a bit differently.”

Board Member Joyce Lowes asked if the staff would be required to have emergency certifications, CPR and those types of credentials.

“They don’t have to because we are an exempt facility,” Johnson said. “But we plan on following the childcare regulations like CPR and First Aid. We have moved toward wanting all of any classified (staff) that works with staff to either have their 60 hours, or a paraprofessional certificate and have experience with early childhood. They do not have to be a certified teacher. We have talked about having a lead caretaker who would be on a different column on the classified schedule and have then paraprofessionals who would support that lead caretaker in the classroom.”

Lowes asked if it would be open to the public. Johnson said she didn’t think they could because of the need within the district.

“In my mind, the plan would be to hire five people to take care of 12 children and then hire additional as people continue to register,” Johnson said. “One thing that came out of the survey was making sure we go by the teacher’s calendar and not just the academic calendar so that the daycare would operate when the teachers had to be out.”

Johnson said they would discuss the possibility for a couple more months before we would ask for any kind of movement on it. Any questions or comments may be emailed to her.

“If its something we’re looking at for staff retention, we would probably want to have it in place for people who are looking for employment in February, March still,” Johnson said.

Teachers and staff spend an average of $491 a month per child for childcare. If the district moves forward with the teacher childcare program, it could cost as much as $95,000 according to Johnson’s documents.

Johnson proposed the district continue the Career Ladder Program if funding through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) lapses.

“That program is dependent on funding that is allocated in June,” Johnson said about state funding for the Career Ladder Program. “It has been in place for three years now.”

Career Ladder is a 60/40 share program between the district and the state. Teachers are paid $1,500 for an additional 50 hours of duties not included in their contracts. The school pays for 40 percent of the $1,500 stipend, averaging about $78,000 toward the program a year.

“You can see there what it would look like for certified teachers, counselors and those positions and would require 50 additional hours of work,” Johnson said. “Teachers have to have a plan that gets approved and we set parameters of what that would look like. For that, it’s a $1,500 stipend for phase one. If we implement the full program, it could get more expensive than that.”

That program is limited to only certified staff working on their third year.

Superintendent Dr. Jeri Kay Hardy said teachers working the Excel Program before and after school cannot use that time toward the stipend.

“You can’t double dip,” she said. “When you’re looking at SB727 and Career Ladder and programs provided by the state, one thing that comes out in our legislative meeting is if the appropriations are available. If DESE hits a shortfall, which they are predicting to do, funds may not be available for those things. Keep that in mind.”

Johnson finished by adding information about employee salary increases.

“What it would cost to move everybody over a step, what it would cost to add to the base and where the salary increases have happened over the last five years,” she said. “The salaries have been increased by 14 percent, which is something we should be proud of. Knowing that the rise in inflation and CPI has superseded that, something to think about as we plan for next year.”

The base pay increase is estimated at $275,000 and the step increase is an estimated $150,000 to teacher salaries.

Hardy said she will be meeting with staff to review the salaries of 10-year teachers as that is where they tend to lose people.

“When we hit above 10 years in the Masters columns, we are going to start looking at those columns,” she said.

Board Member Kari Nolting asked if they would have a list of the Masters teachers on where they could best be applied to receive the most return between career ladder or stipends. Hardy said yes. Johnson said they could have something in writing to make it clear. “We also talked about if it’s something that needs to be the stipend, but our first and second-year teachers need to be at it because it’s important training, we could keep it,” Johnson said.