MS gave teacher’s assistants a raise. They may have to work extra in one Coast district.

Educators had reason to celebrate after Mississippi passed its largest teacher pay raise ever. As part of the bill, the minimum annual salary for assistant teachers rose from $15,000 to $17,000.

But for teaching aides in the Jackson County School District, the good news may come with unexpected strings attached.

A proposal under consideration by the district’s school board seeks to extend the number of days assistant teachers are required to work from 180 to 187 days a year.

Two Coast legislators and the state superintendent of education condemned the proposal, which appeared on the agenda of Monday’s meeting of the Jackson County School Board.

The proposal’s critics say it effectively diminishes the $2,000 raise by making the assistant teachers, who are paid an hourly wage, work more hours to get it.

Long Beach state representative Richard Bennett, who wrote and sponsored the pay raise bill, said it didn’t even occur to him to include language stipulating that the raise only applied to hours currently worked.

“No one would dream you would need to put something in the law to prevent this,” Bennett told the Sun Herald.

Bennett said teachers’ assistants are “the most underpaid, underappreciated people in this system. This is an insult to those aides.”

The proposed extension of assistant teachers’ working hours was added to the May 9 meeting agenda by the Jackson County school superintendent John Strycker.

The proposal has not been voted on or discussed by the Board. Its appearance on the agenda was to give public notice that the proposal will be considered at a later meeting, in accordance with district policy. The next meeting will be held on June 13.

Jackson County School District responds

Strycker did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.

On Thursday, however, the superintendent sent a release explaining the district’s reasoning for proposing extra days for assistants.

The $2,000 raise will bring the salary for teacher’s assistants at Jackson County schools to $19,800. Strycker said $1,250 of the raise will go toward increasing the hourly rate of pay. The remaining $750 would go toward compensating assistants for the additional seven days of work.

“The school district’s intention of increasing teacher assistants to 187 days was to align their work schedules with teachers,” Strycker said, adding that his proposal will likely not pass the Jackson County Board of Education.

‘Totally inappropriate,’ MS lawmaker says

Rep. Manly Barton of Moss Point, whose district includes part of Jackson County, told the Sun Herald it was “totally inappropriate” of Strycker to suggest extending the teaching aides’ hours.

“I can’t imagine him even asking the school board to do this, and I can’t imagine any school board agreeing to do this,” Barton said.

Carey Wright, Mississippi’s superintendent of education, also took issue with the proposed move.

“Mississippi educators have been underpaid for quite some time, and our state Legislature responded to that problem this year by passing an historic teacher pay raise bill,” Wright wrote in an emailed statement to the Sun Herald.

“Though local school boards have the authority to extend educators’ workdays for various reasons, it would be unfair if school boards use the new legislation as the sole basis for requiring educators to work additional days.”

While the language of Strycker’s proposal doesn’t make reference to the pay raise, Barton said, “I personally don’t think it’s coincidental” that the proposed workload extension so closely followed the bill, which will become law on July 1.

Assistant teachers work in elementary school classrooms to support teachers. They are paid significantly less than teachers and are not required to have a college degree.

“I certainly think we get our money’s worth for what we pay them. It’s like having two teachers in the class,” said Barton.

In Jackson County, assistant teachers are paid an hourly wage that varies according to their experience, ranging from $12.36 for an employee with no experience through $20.95 for 35 years’ experience.

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re probably still underpaid a little bit” after the statewide raise, Barton said. “The $2,000 was what we were able to do given the amount of money we had to spend.”

“Why would anyone do something this cruel, to punish these aides for no reason?” asked Bennett.

Sun Herald staff writer Anita Lee contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published May 12, 2022 at 8:00 AM.