Emporia USD 253 board unanimously approves tentative agreement, salary schedules, insurance renewals, meal price changes and other routine items

At its July 9 meeting, the Emporia USD 253 Board of Education approved a set of negotiated contracts, budget- and operations-related renewals and routine annual resolutions and appointments. The headline action was the board’s approval of a tentative negotiated agreement for licensed professionals and accompanying updates to administrator and classified salary schedules for the 2025–26 school year.

Pam Strandothan, presenting the negotiated-agreement materials, summarized the IBB (interest-based bargaining) process and the IBB team's internal ratification: "We ended up with a 194 yes and 6 no," she said, describing staff-level voting on the tentative deal. The district recommended a certified-salary schedule package that includes horizontal and vertical movement for 2025–26 and a $1,000 base increase on the certified salary schedule. The administration said the package also provides two additional years of movement for staff with master's degrees or higher, preserves existing stipends so that no certified staff at the bottom of the schedule lose pay, recommends changes to the supplemental schedule and continues a $15,000 scholarship pool to support staff in obtaining qualifications for dual-credit and special-education courses. The administration reported the district-level budget impact of the negotiated items at roughly $961,000 after accounting for new revenue; a narrower, direct cost estimate before other increases was presented as about $270,000.

Other approvals included renewals for workers' compensation through the KASB workers' compensation pool and property/liability insurance through the Kansas Insurance Cooperative for Schools, a memorandum of understanding with Flint Hills Technical College for temporary storage of dirt during construction, approval of the 2026 program agreement for school nutrition programs, modest increases to some meal prices for 2025–26 and continuation of a subsidized program covering costs for students who qualify for reduced-price meals. The board also approved routine annual appointments, a home-rule resolution for 2025–26 and a waiver of generally accepted accounting principles for budgeting purposes for 2025–26.

The board approved a new board policy on artificial intelligence (Policy IIBE) at second reading with the expectation that staff and student handbooks will be updated and returned to the board at the July 24 meeting; the motion carried 7–0. An executive session on privileged attorney–client matters was held; the board returned to open session and adjourned later in the meeting.

Below is a concise list of the actions taken at the meeting and the recorded outcomes.