Teachers, parents press Chatham County Schools to restore master’s pay and add EC, bilingual incentives

At a Chatham County Schools board meeting (date not specified), teachers, support staff and parents used the public comment period to urge the school board to restore the district supplement for teachers with master’s degrees and to add targeted incentive pay for EC staff and bilingual classified employees.

The comments centered on retention and recruitment. John Clark, a third-grade teacher at Chatham Grove Elementary and a member of the Chatham County Association of Educators, said the loss of a master’s supplement had produced a personal financial shortfall: "$28,690 of just base pay," he said, describing that amount as "a staggering amount for me specifically." Clark said the district’s reinstatement of other supplements last year had signaled value for teachers, and he urged the board to restore master’s pay to make Chatham more competitive with neighboring counties.

Several speakers described long hours and heavy caseloads for EC staff. Nia Marsh Pope, an EC resource teacher at Jordan-Matthews High School, explained that much of the special-education workload—planning, assessments, paperwork and meetings—occurs outside the school day, and said that vacancies increase that burden. EC instructional assistant Sherry Austin described daily duties beginning before classes, including bus supervision and personal-care tasks, and said she works a second job because pay is insufficient.

Parents and advocates pressed the board for targeted supplements. A parent, Bridal Varter (listed in the transcript as a parent), recounted how master’s-level teachers helped a child exit special-education services and asked the board to consider incentives that would retain high-quality EC staff. Maria Pulido, a parent and bilingual advocate, said bilingual classroom staff "are our bridges to those people who may not speak the same language as us" and urged supplemental pay to retain those employees.

Public-commenters cited specific proposals. Stephanie Powell, a resident and public-school advocate, read the CCAE petition asking the board to adopt incentive pay of "$2,500 a year for EC teachers and assistants and incentive pay of $1,000 per year for bilingual classified staff." Powell framed the proposed supplements as a local policy response to state- and federal-level pressures on public education.

Board members did not take a formal vote on compensation at the meeting. Speakers repeatedly asked that the board consider the proposals in the district budget process so the supplements would be in place for recruitment and retention purposes.

The public comment period included multiple other teachers and staff who described long workdays, duties beyond classroom instruction and the consequences of vacancies for service delivery to students with disabilities. The board did not announce a timetable or decision at the meeting; public commenters asked the board to include the requests in the upcoming budget deliberations.