Wright City R-II schools proceed with career ladder program

By John Rohlf, Staff Writer
Posted 6/6/23

The Wright City R-II school district will proceed with the career ladder program next school year. 

At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, R-II Superintendent Dr. Chris Berger …

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Wright City R-II schools proceed with career ladder program

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The Wright City R-II school district will proceed with the career ladder program next school year. 

At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, R-II Superintendent Dr. Chris Berger directed the district to implement a career ladder program. The program was restarted by the state last school year after going away around 2005. 

“If you remember back to September, October, Dr. Berger said I don’t think we’ve ever done this in our district but we’re moving forward and we’re doing this.” Assistant Superintendent Jeremy Way said. “So we were kind of flying a little blind to begin with in October on it.”

The program allows for stipends to be paid to teachers, with the state covering 60% of the cost. Teachers can receive stipends of $1,500, $3,000 or $5,000, depending on years of service. A minimum of two years of teaching experience in Missouri is required to utilize the program. The stages with the higher amounts require more hours outside of the normal school day duties. The Wright City R-II district saw 60 out of 115 eligible staff take advantage of the program. 

Thirty-seven of the staff who utilized the program were level three staff, which required completion of five years at Missouri schools and working 100 hours outside of normal job duties last school year. Those in level three received a $5,000 stipend. 

The total cost to the school district for all 60 staff members who utilized the program was about $136,000. 

“Our priority was to just get it off the ground,” Berger said. “I had really good communications with the salary committee on career ladder and how to preserve it. They want to keep it at a high fidelity too because they do like it but they understand, it’s got to have the bang for the buck. If your remember, we said this has got to impact student learning because that’s $136,000 off the salary schedule. So we’re balancing that.” 

The categories utilized by the district for career ladder were co-curricular, clubs and sports, tutoring, success ready, certification and committees. Of the 4,583 hours put in for the program, 48% of the hours were put towards co-curricular, clubs and sports. One of the main goals for year two of the program is to have 51% of the career ladder hours include face to face instruction that supports student learning. 

“We’re looking at changing some of our goals for year two,” Way said. “We really want to have more than 50% of our career ladder hours include face to face instruction that supports student learning. So we’re really kind of focused on tutoring and success ready moving forward. We’re going to put some criteria in there for next year to make sure that happens.”

The goals for year two are also to look to increase success ready opportunities for Wright City students and develop a career ladder timeline to help teachers and administrators identify key timelines throughout the year. 

Wright City R-II school board member Kyle Lewis is not in favor of the 51% goal for year two of the program. He noted the struggle for athletics teams to find coaches for their teams. 

“I personally don’t agree with the 51% goal for year two,” Lewis said. “If our teachers are spending the time not their regularly contracted time to work with our students in the district in whatever way possible, if this gets some extra cash in their pockets at the end of the year, I see it as a benefit. I’m personally not a big fan of the 51% goal.” 

Way said one of the district’s struggles is a career ladder assistant coach or helper making more per hour through the career ladder program than if they were hired for a coaching position. Way stressed hired coaches are not able to utilize the career ladder program through coaching hours. 

Board member Erin Williams supports the district utilizing the program for as much instruction with students as possible. 

“I think as much face to face instruction would be where I would want to see this go to,” Williams said. “I think that’s what we’re here for at the end of the day.” 

The school board unanimously approved the career ladder plan for the 2023-2024 school year. 

wright city, r2, school, district, career lader

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