Orange Beach discusses teacher salaries

By Guy Busby
Government Editor
guy@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 5/4/22

ORANGE BEACH — Orange Beach education officials plan to adopt a salary schedule for teachers at an upcoming meeting in preparation for the municipal system's first academic year in …

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Orange Beach discusses teacher salaries

Posted

ORANGE BEACH — Orange Beach education officials plan to adopt a salary schedule for teachers at an upcoming meeting in preparation for the municipal system's first academic year in August.

Robbie Smith, interim superintendent of education, said the salary schedule will be ready for a final reading when the board chooses to vote on the policy. She said salaries for employees and substitutes should match or exceed those for other systems.

"We want to be honestly competitive and better than those around us and so we will take our time and really, really work through that," Smith said.

Ford Handley, system chief financial officer, said he and Smith looked at the pay scales of other systems in preparing the Orange Beach schedule. He said the plan will also include upcoming raises required under state law.

"What we have done is we went ahead and looked around what other city school systems, county school systems came up with the recommendation between Dr. Smith and I and then also went ahead and approved or implemented this approved state raises. So, those will go into effect July 1, 2022," Handley said. "This goes across the board for all the classifications from teachers to all the other jobs that we will offer."

The system held a job fair for teachers and other full-time employees on Wednesday, April 27.

At the board meeting Tuesday, April 26, Smith said the system will also need its own pool of substitutes.

"We certainly want to recruit and retain substitutes, whether it's a bus driver substitute or classroom sub," Smith said.

Smith said a plan for salary supplements for positions such as coaches and other educators who perform additional duties will also be ready to be presented to the board in the next few weeks.

The board voted to give final approval to a school calendar for the 2022-23 academic year. In the first year, the calendar will be the same as the schedule for the Baldwin County Public School System.

In previous meetings, board members said keeping the same calendar for the first year of operations would reduce confusion. They said some families have already made plans for vacations and other activities based on the county plan before the city announced plans to create its own system.

Smith said another plan to be presented to the board will include drug testing. She said the company that now does drug testing for Orange Beach city employees will make a presentation to the board at an upcoming meeting.

"We want it to encompass a lot of things including education, programs to complete should we have a positive test," she said. "That would give us some really good information to start with, but the framework is there, and we may be ready for a first reading, maybe a couple of weeks."

The board also approved memorandums of understanding with the University of Alabama and Auburn University for Early College Participation programs.

"This will allow our students to get dual enrollment credit as well as take courses that would apply to early college admissions for both these universities," Smith said.

She said the system is also working on similar MOUs with other universities.

Orange Beach City Council members voted in March to create a new municipal school system separate from the Baldwin County Public School System. The split is scheduled to take place July 1.