More than 160 teachers at Hamilton County Schools who had their stipends unexpectedly revoked will soon have their pay restored.
The stipend, called differentiated pay, is offered to around 1,400 educators working in the district's most underserved public schools -- also referred to as Hope and Promise schools -- as a way to retain and incentivize them.
Many started the new year without the pay after unknowingly taking too many sick days and violating eligibility requirements.
But the Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday evening to reinstate the stipends.
Chief Talent Officer Zac Brown told board members that upon review, there had been inadequate communication about the stipend's eligibility requirements, and the staff formally recommended the board reinstate the pay.
"We recognize that there was some, I don't want to say miscommunication, but there's some things that we could have done better to make sure that our staff understands the expectations going forward," Brown said Thursday. "Our recommendation is that we take this year, reinstate our employees that lost their differentiated compensation. We will allow them to retro that back for this school year. But a commitment from the talent office is that we will over-communicate in the coming months expectations going forward."
He added the reinstatement will affect between 160-180 employees.
His comments were met by a round of applause from teachers at the meeting.
According to the district's eligibility requirements, the pay is contingent upon teachers' effectiveness scores, a system used to evaluate teacher performance and attendance. Although district policy allows teachers to accrue and roll over unused sick days -- they are allotted 10 days each school year -- those on differentiated pay plans cannot use more than 10.
Prior to the vote, Orchard Knob Elementary School teacher Candace Baker told board members that many of her colleagues were considering leaving over the matter.
"We've washed clothes, done hair, given rides and even picked up the prescriptions for the families to deliver them to their house," Baker said. "We deliver Christmas presents, Thanksgiving dinners, and any teacher would call any student's parent as needed because we all have a stake in every student's success. We're at risk of losing some of the incredible educators that I work with every day."
Baker said that as a foster and newly adoptive parent, she's taken sick days to attend court hearings, doctor's appointments and psychiatric stays. She said she could not take family and medical leave because she has not yet worked the minimum 1,250 hours to be eligible.
"I'm at nine absences this year," Baker said. "One of those absences was the adoption of my 17-year-old. A few weeks ago, I came to school feeling extremely sick because I took if I took one more day I would lose my differentiated pay. Because I've now learned to budget my life around an extra $305 a month, I can't risk losing it."
In December, the issue was brought to the attention of the Tennessee Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. The association started a petition calling on the Hamilton County Board of Education to reinstate the pay for the remainder of the school year.
Dozens of teachers attended the board meeting in January to urge board members to reinstate the pay.
"Just reinstate the darn stipends," Aaron Fowles of the Tennessee Education Association said at the January meeting.
Board members said Thursday they agreed with the administration's recommendation.
"I appreciate the opportunity to reinstate differentiated pay," said board member Jill Black, D-Lookout Mountain. "I think it's very important moving forward when you're re-examining whatever you're going to put forth as far as requirements for differentiated pay, I would just like to request that you keep in mind that our teachers are people, too. And a lot of our teachers are primary caregivers for people in their family, and it's not just themselves being sick."
Superintendent Justin Robertson said hard conversations will have to be had as differentiated pay is funded by COVID-19 relief dollars, not the general budget.
"(Differentiated compensation) is about $7.5 million a year," Robertson said Thursday. "The intent is to make sure we've got great teachers in the schools that historically we've not been able to attract great teachers. So, we need to be prepared to have a really hard conversation about differentiated compensation."
Brown said while there isn't an exact timeline, teachers who lost their pay should expect an email with a date as to when they will be compensated.
Contact Carmen Nesbitt at cnesbitt@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327.