Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools is continuing to investigate new ways to pay teachers and support staff through Project ADVANCE.
Project ADVANCE is a new system that CHCCS is working on that will award raises to teachers who continue their professional development through classes or other learning opportunities.
Executive Director Rydell Harrison presented some of his plans for Project ADVANCE to the CHCCS Board of Education last week
“Is there really a connection between years of service and student learning,” he said. “The answer to that question is no there is not and this unfortunately sends a confusing message about what’s most important.”
Under the current system, CHCCS teachers receive raises based on how many years they have been teaching. Harrison said he believes Project ADVANCE could be the solution to this problem.
“The way it works is that teachers and support staff will earn credits by participating in professional learning,” he said. “Then those new practices are implemented in the classroom by working with students and that’s another level of points and then finally once we see the impact and look at student outcomes we’re able to award additional credits.”
Once a staff member earns a certain number of credits, they will move to a higher level on the pay scale.
“This allows teachers to move to the higher end of the salary schedule that we currently have in a more accelerated time frame,” he said. “And we hope that this would help us recruit and retain strong teachers.”
He is working towards implementing the system for all teachers starting in August of next year, but is still creating many of the specifics, including how to bring teachers into the system that are already in the district and what exactly the levels of pay will be.
He will continue to present his plan to the board as the year goes on.
Board member Andrew Davidson said the board will support the project in any way it can in order implement the program next school year.
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Just a reminder that teachers already receive constant professional development and learning and are often expected to implement plans and new ways of teaching before someone provides the full training and materials. I think this is putting more on the shoulders of teachers who work too many hours outside of the school day in the first place. 23 years experience here. I venture to say that my experience with multiple grade levels and different types of classrooms trumps a good number of beginning teachers, although they have much to add to our system, too.