Williamsburg Ind. BOE approves raises for all employees

Employees of the Williamsburg Independent School District will be seeing a little more money on their paychecks this coming school year, thanks to raises that were approved last week by the Williamsburg Independent Board of Education.

During their regular monthly meeting last Tuesday, board members voted unanimously to provide all classified positions—or non-teaching personnel—a $2 hourly raise and all certified employees a 6 percent raise. The raises take effect beginning July 1.

The board’s decision was met with joyous applause by employees who were in attendance.

Superintendent Tabetha Housekeeper commended the staff for their work over the past year. She also made sure to acknowledge that one of the biggest advocates for providing such substantial raises was the board itself.

“These board members, all five of them, they love this place. We have spent countless hours on the salary schedule, countless hours crunching numbers seeing if we can do this and do it the right way for staff. But you know who had your back and was pushing us for more, more, more? These guys,” said Housekeeper. “When we were trying to be conservative, these guys said, ‘If we can do, let’s do it.’”

Other area school districts have also recently provided employees with raises, which were made available due to recent legislation increasing SEEK funding and transportation budgets.

In other board of education business:

– A number of existing positions were abolished during last Tuesday’s meeting, including: director of curriculum and instruction, dean of students, bookstore/school activity and chief information officer.

The duties performed by those positions will be rolled into other existing positions and a variety of new positions that were also created during last Tuesday’s meeting. Of those new positions created were: director of innovative learning, assistant principal of elementary, assistant principal of middle school/high school, elementary MTTS coordinator, director of transportation, director of facilities and teaching and learning coach.

During last month’s meeting, an assistant superintendent position was also created. Since last week’s board meeting, it has been announced that Marc Taylor, who has served as principal since the 2019-2020 school year, will take over that role.

Housekeeper confirmed to the News Journal on Tuesday that head principal interviews will begin next week.

– A special-called meeting of the board of education was held last Monday to perform a superintendent evaluation to gauge Housekeeper’s performance over the past year. That evaluation is done using a competency-based system where the superintendent and board work together to gauge performance, identify areas of competency and determine any growth needed for the superintendent to focus on in a given year.

The system is based around seven standards of leadership for the superintendent—strategic leadership, instructional leadership, cultural leadership, human resource leadership, managerial leadership, collaborative leadership and influential leadership—and superintendents receive one of four grades, ranging from “growth required” to “exemplary.”

Housekeeper, who just finished her first year as the school’s superintendent, received an “exemplary” grade in all seven standards, according to Board Chair Kim Williams.

During last Tuesday’s board meeting, Williams took a moment to commend Housekeeper on her work.

“I just wanted to let everyone know in this body, and frankly, all over this town, we’re very pleased to have her here and we really think things are going in the right direction,” said Williams.

Housekeeper spoke briefly about her goals for the coming year, saying that she is focusing on two key issues to help continue to improve the district.

“Relationships with kids, and teaching and learning,” said Housekeeper. “Every dollar we spend next year, it’s going to support one of those goals.”