As conversations around a potential four-day school week unfolded, it became clear that a variety of options and suggestions could be implemented to improve the quality of life for Lewis-Palmer School District 38 staff members. This led district leadership to conduct an exercise with the D38 Staff Collaboration Committee, and ultimately create a staff survey to help identify key priorities for the D38 team as a whole.
While a four-day school week will not be implemented in the 2023-2024 school year as research on viability continues, SCC members conducted a strengths and opportunities exercise to help identify potential priorities for staff, ultimately proposing 25 total ideas. Those ideas and suggestions formed an all-staff survey with a ranking exercise as the fundamental question.
More than 300 individuals completed the survey and ranking question, leading to the identification of the top 10 items that would positively impact staff, including:
- Create a program for loyalty/longevity bonuses
- Restore past frozen steps (like in 21-22)
- Increase PTO and make leave more flexible
- Compensate for time worked off contract
- Honor more years of service (current & new)
- Consolidate non-student days, add calendar flexibility, to create long weekends for staff
- Extend pay schedules for earning potential
- Collapse PLC delays into fewer full days
- Cut costs, find efficiencies, increase salaries
- Revamp PD to be flexible and honor past PD
“Ultimately, staff want to be paid appropriately, and streamlining programs and processes may help accomplish that goal,” a presentation to the Board of Education at the Feb. 7 work session read. “When compensation changes are constrained, increased opportunities for calendar and leave flexibility help ‘soften the blow.’”
According to D38 leadership, with the information from the survey, costs and potential actions will be proposed and evaluated in tandem with the creation of a proposed budget for the upcoming year.
You can find a full conversation and presentation around this survey by watching our recent Board of Education Work Session here and viewing the presentation here.