GUILDERLAND — In an unusually contentious meeting June 16, school board members clashed over pay for substitute teachers and over the appointment of a coordinator for instructional technology.

Guilderland has struggled to get enough substitute teachers, which some board members believed was because the district had cut the pay for substitutes while others argued it was part of an area-wide trend. This school year, Guilderland paid $95 daily for substitute teachers at the high school and $90 for those at the middle and elementary schools; this was a drop of $5 a day from the previous rate.

The district recommended raising the rates and, after a heated discussion, the board agreed. It was slated to act on the matter at its July 1 re-organizational meeting.

The June meeting had opened with several teachers telling the board of problems caused by the shortage of substitutes.

Kathy State, a reading teacher and language arts coordinator at Lynnwood Elementary School, said she teaches 15 “struggling readers” and with six days without substitutes, 90 reading lessons were missed. State then reported calculations she had done on thousands of missed hours of reading lessons district-wide. “That’s just reading,” she said.

Often, teaching assistants are pulled from classrooms to fill in, which causes other disruptions. “The numbers become overwhelming,” State concluded.

Kerry Dineen, a Pine Bush Elementary School music teacher, said she had warned the board “way, way back” when it first considered decreasing the daily pay. “The negative impact has increased just in months,” said Dineen.

She said that teachers being called from workshops to fill in hurt the “neediest” students, and also that district teachers get paid far more than substitutes. Dineen said that what she is paid to substitute for an hour is what a substitute would get for half a day.

Fees at nearby districts in Schenectady and Duanesburg exceed $100 a day, said Dineen.

Erin McNamara, a high school English teacher and the president of the Guilderland Teachers’ Association, encouraged the board to increase substitute pay. “There’s a ripple effect...it’s going to get cast onto the students,” she said.

“We just don’t have enough substitutes...to cover,” said Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Lin Severance, noting that other districts are also having a difficult time.

“It’s a problem,” said Superintendent Marie Wiles. “The bottom line is our students are missing out on instruction.”

Guilderland uses only certified teachers as substitutes and Wiles recommended that, under certain circumstances — she gave the example of a professional musician substituting for a music teacher — it would be fine to use a substitute without certification.

“Our ability to compete with our neighbors each year becomes worse,” said Wiles.

“Teaching is an art in itself,” said board member Gloria Towle-Hilt, who is retired from teaching at Farnsworth Middle School; she objected to hiring substitutes without certification.

Severance said substitutes that come to Guilderland through the Board Of Cooperative Educational Services go through a security check, and she still reviews them. “My standards are extremely high,” said Severance, stating she would only approve applicants who have student taught.

“These are people we know,” Wiles responded, adding, “We’ve become desperate.”

Board member Christopher McManus said, “The bigger issue is, why are absences going up so much? Compared to other schools, we’re much higher.”

This year, Guilderland had 3,700 days of teacher absence. “We’re always at the top...for absences,” said McManus.

The board’s vice president, Allan Simpson, said he doesn’t think money will solve the problem since the pool of substitutes has shrunk.

Board member Judy Slack, a retired teaching assistant who has worked as a substitute said that the decrease in pay “was a real slap in the face” for her friends. “They re-retired,” Slack said. “They felt it was an insult.”

Severance concurred, saying that, years ago, Guilderland had a dedicated cadre of substitute teachers and didn’t need to rely on the BOCES pool.

“They were dedicated to Guilderland and only substituted in Guilderland,” said Severance. “Now we have to go to the pool when we didn’t before.”

Jennifer Charron, speaking at her last meeting since she did not seek re-election, said that Voorheesville was the top district in the area and paid its substitutes $75 a day, requiring only a bachelor’s degree.

“If you want quality people, you have to pay them,” said board member Catherine Barber. “It’s not throwing money away. It’s paying money to get better people back.”

Board President Barbara Fraterrigo pointed out an audit showed Guilderland had saved $21,000 by decreasing the pay for substitutes.

Sesverance responded that there were many unfilled spots, with principals taking over, or with two classes being combined.

Ultimately, the board agreed to make the pay rate the same for the elementary, middle, and high school substitutes, increasing that rate to $105 a day. The half-day rate will be eliminated and a rate of $95 per day will be created for non-certified substitutes.

Tech appointments

This past spring, as part of the discussion on the $93.7 million budget for next year, which was approved by the voters in May, the board learned about a plan to restructure the administration of technology in the district.

In June, the board ultimately approved, by a vote of 8 to 1, the two recommended appointments of :

— Natalia LeMoyne, appointed in September 2012 as the district’s instructional technology specialist, now as a coordinator for instructional technology at a 12-month salary of $80,000; she has educational technology specialist, initial certification; and

— Pierre Val, appointed in January 2014 as a network and systems technician at an annual salary of $59,000, now as the coordinator for infrastructure and networks, for a 12-month salary of $80,000.

McManus cast the dissenting vote and argued strenuously against the appointments. He focused on the percentage increase in salaries of 54 percent and 34 percent. “This is going to jump out at people,” he said.

Fraterrigo asked if the workload had increased by a third.

“Easily,” replied Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Demian Singleton.

He also said that the positions are year-round, without the summer off, and that the restructuring brings a net savings of $60,000 for the district. “The summer months for technology are huge,” said Singleton, since devices and system are installed while students are away.

Singleton also said he was frustrated to hear objections now, in June, with 900 devices slated for delivery in 10 days. He also said skilled expertise is essential in running the technology for a $93 million operation.

Of the new structure, he said, “This is a significant shift...All of those responsibilities are disbursed in a different way.”

“There’s a ripple effect,” asserted McManus of increasing a salary by 54 percent without an “administrative degree.”

The field of information technology is different than school administration, said Singleton. “We have to align the compensation to the role,” he said.

“We have cloud-based systems,” continued Singleton, reeling off a long list of district initiatives that are dependent on the technology, including technology for students with disabilities, the ongoing capital project, licensing for instructional software, and 6,316 current users.

McManus praised Singleton’s IT savvy but said, “If you do leave, my other fear is, we’ll have to hire a director.”

“We have three people getting expertise who could step into a directorship,” Singleton responded. “We did not get a deep pool for our director...We were lucky to get Joe Reilly,” he said of the recently retired technology director. To expect one person to oversee technology that is “doubling and tripling before our eyes” is unrealistic, said Singleton.

“Are we developing a unique strategy?” asked board Vice President Allan Simpson. “No one else does this...A director of IT seems critical.”

“Why didn’t you ask in the spring?” asked board member Colleen O’Connell.

“I did not connect the dots,” responded Simpson.

“This is a bold move — well thought out, well researched,” said Towle-Hilt. “So what if someone else isn’t doing it?”

“This is a lot of money,” McManus persisted, asking, “Did any of you know their current salaries?”  He also said, “I go to SeeThroughNY and The Enterprise — they published the salaries.”

“Last year, we took a well regarded social studies teacher and promoted her to assistant principal,” said O’Connell, alluding to McManus’s wife. “She was given a salary that fits her current role.”

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Heard from Jeanne Cox complaints that her daughter, who plays the violin, had to buy a music book that was written by a Guilderland faculty member. “I should be reimbursed for royalties,” Cox told the school board. She also said she was frustrated in her attempts to get answers, and told the board, “I’d like a timeline for a resolution.” She concluded, “If I hadn’t been persistent, I think the matter would have been dropped.”

“We worked very hard to get to the bottom of it,” Wiles told The Enterprise after the meeting. Guilderland elementary music teacher Lenore Snow wrote a book that the district had used for “a long time” and, since Cox’s complaint, has stopped using, she said. Wiles said the district’s ethics policy states that staff members are not to “derive personal gain” from their work.

Wiles said she hadn’t before been aware of the request for royalties and did not know if it would be feasible to reimburse the many families who had purchased the book over the years the fraction of pennies they may be owed;

— Appointed Honeywell Law Firm, PLLC as school counsel for collective bargaining and general matters at $160 per hour, terminating its agreements with Girvin & Ferlazzo, P.C. except for special education and existing tax certiori matters.

Wiles recommended Honeywell become the school attorney “after his bold and brave move to strike out on his own.” Honeywell had worked for Girvin & Ferlazzo, advising the district; and

— Heard Fraterrigo announce she would not seek to remain president at the July 1 re-organizational meeting, when board leaders are elected for the coming year. “I believe in renewal of leadership,” she said. “I hate leaving but I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t.” She concluded, “I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of you.”