The new plan will go into effect in August 2011

Contact: Haley Miller (336) 370-3200
Created: 3/10/2010 8:36:14 AM

The Guilford County Board of Education approved Tuesday a strategic compensation plan that will help the district recruit and retain employees for hard to staff positions.

The district's strategic plan calls for evaluating and refining a pay structure that recognizes the need to differentiate compensation for difficult to staff positions. Since the district's federal funding for its current incentive program, Mission Possible, is expiring in 2010-11, a project team has reviewed current salary incentive programs and surveyed employees and the community to develop the plan.

The new strategic compensation plan will go into effect in August 2011. Like the district's current salary incentive programs, the new plan will provide placement incentives to recruit and retain teachers in difficult to staff positions. It also will provide individual performance incentives for faculty who teach in tested subjects.

In addition, the plan will allow for school-wide performance incentives to recognize the efforts of all staff and faculty who contribute to building a positive learning environment for students. Incentives will be available to all staff at qualifying schools based on how well the school performs and the position a staff member holds.

Schools will be selected based on an index, with schools that are historically difficult to staff or have historically underperformed compared to district averages ranking highest. Schools that raise their performance will exit the program on a graduated basis.

In developing the plan, the project team received input from school employees, community members and national experts. If implemented with the 30 schools that participate in the district's current incentive programs, it could cost about $4.4 million each year.

"Our goal through strategic compensation is to recruit and retain teachers in hard to staff positions and see increases in student growth in these areas," said Dr. Shirley Morrison, chief human resources officer. "The plan puts greater emphasis on performance and recognizes some of the hard to staff positions that are not included in our current incentive programs."