Milton School District: interim staff covering occupational therapy and advanced-learning duties; board to consider overload pay

Speaker 1 told the board that two positions — an occupational therapist and an advanced learning teacher — remain unfilled and that three current staff members have been shouldering those responsibilities since the start of the school year. The district contracts with an outside therapy provider for about 16 hours per week; that contractor has reached its capacity and cannot increase hours, the speaker said.

The occupational therapist position had been posted in August in response to increased therapy needs, and the advanced learning teacher duties have been covered by Northside’s teaching-and-learning coach, who has been running grade-level enrichment groups, developing lesson plans, coordinating academic competitions and meeting with small groups of fourth- through sixth-graders. Speaker 1 said the board will receive a fuller report at its Jan. 12 meeting identifying the three staff covering the work and requesting overload pay to compensate them from the beginning of the school year until the vacancies are filled.

The presentation did not include dollar amounts for the overload payments, nor did it identify specific timelines for hiring the two positions; the board packet referenced a memo that Speaker 1 had shared on Friday. The speaker said the district has explored additional vendor capacity but that no other local organizations could meet the need for extra therapy hours at this time.

The Jan. 12 agenda item will provide the roster of the three staff members performing the extra duties and the board will consider whether to approve retroactive overload pay.