Overton School Board Match Substitute Pay To Base Salaries

The Overton County School System will now pay substitute teachers according to a full time teacher’s base salary.

A non-certified substitute teacher will now earn 50 percent of a teacher’s base salary. A certified substitute will earn 60 percent of that base. That works out to $105 per day for non-certified and $126 per day for certified. Board Member William Abston said the change will save the board time going forward.

“When we do this we can vote on this one time and not have to revisit because any time we raise payroll it’s going to automatically bump up the substitute teachers also,” Abston said. “So it’ll just be one thing that carries across, and we’ll know if we give the teachers a raise the substitutes are going to get a raise also.”

The new pay scale goes into effect December 1. Abston asked the board to also tie the rate paid to teacher’s aides and support staff to the same base rate.

“We’ll do the 50 percent for a non-certified and 60 percent for a certified for the teacher scale and then for support staff they’ll start at the base rate of whatever that position is,” Abston said.

Previously substitute teachers earned a daily rate of $75 for non-certified and $95 for certified. Attaching the pay rate to a teacher’s base salary made the process more convenient.

Board member Jarman Hicks was the only member who voted no.

The board also unanimously voted to change bus driver’s pay rate when going on trips. The board voted to raise bus driver pay to $17.50 an hour and $10 and hour for the time they wait for students and teachers to get done with field trips or sporting events. There is a minimum pay of $100 for trips more than 75 miles.

“It’s going to help our drivers a lot,” Bus Coordinator Jason Cantrell said. “Right now we only have three or four who actually makes trips. Right now they’re averaging on a long trip a dollar below minimum wage on a very long trip. So this will help them out a lot and we’ll get a lot more people wanting to drive trips”

The new pay rate for bus drivers starts immediately.