The Vancouver Public Schools board on Tuesday unanimously approved a raise for Superintendent Steve Webb that brings his salary to more than a quarter of a million dollars.
The school board voted 3 to 0 to approve a $5,711 pay increase for the superintendent, a state cost-of-living allocation that raises his salary this year to $254,026. District spokeswoman Pat Nuzzo said that’s the same 3.1 percent cost of living adjustment all district employees received at a minimum for the 2017-2018 school year.
Rosemary Fryer and Michelle Giovannozzi were absent from Tuesday’s meeting.
When Webb started with the district in 2008, his salary was $192,000, according to the original contract language. That means that in a decade, Webb has seen his salary grow by $61,025.
That doesn’t include such benefits as health insurance and public retirement.
The contract also includes an additional $2,784 per month above and beyond Webb’s salary that can be placed in a tax-sheltered annuity.
That’s a 2.3 percent increase from last year’s $2,721.66 monthly contribution to that fund.
Paraeducators
Tuesday’s board meeting also saw a large showing of paraeducators and their supporters, clad in the familiar red of educator unions.
The Vancouver Association of Education Support Professionals is in the midst of contract negations on the tail end of heated teacher union negotiations for the district and Clark County.
The district and Vancouver Education Association came under fire this month after approving a contract that included staffing reductions for program paraeducators, classroom assistants assigned to specific types of special education classrooms.
No paraeducators lost their jobs but instead were reassigned to other classes, and the district has also noted that the contract granted a slight decline in classroom sizes for special education programs.
But speakers at Tuesday’s meeting said the net effect has been overworked and undercompensated paraeducators working with some of the district’s most vulnerable students.
Jenie Feist, a teacher in a Structured Communications Center at Hudson’s Bay High School, said she lost two of her program paraeducators. That meant the class had to cut educational opportunities for students.
“It was set up to run based on what we had before the school year started,” she said.
Terri Sadowski, a paraeducator in an SCC class at Hudson’s Bay, echoed Feist, saying reductions in staffing levels have created a “stressful, unsafe and divided environment for staff and students.”
“We want to service our students to the best of our abilities,” Sadowski said. “We are not able to provide the same level of service with these cuts.”
According to VAESP’s website, the union last week “made significant progress with contract language,” but financial issues remain on the table to be bargained.
