School board addresses importance of keeping staff

JACKSON, Tenn. — Two topics were up for discussion during a meeting by leaders with the Jackson-Madison County System.

During Thursday’s meeting, members of school board discussed the importance of keeping staff within the schools.

Pete Johnson, the board’s chairman, says it’s really difficult at times due to the limitations of being a smaller district.

“The governor sets up a dollar amount for teachers raises, and it’s a percent based on the number of teachers you have in your system. So smaller systems get less funds, larger systems get more,” Johnson said.

Johnson says more than often they have to find ways to raise money or dip into the funds that they already have available.

“We got to strain and actually do a process of what the state gives us versus what we ask the county for, and look at what extra funds we have left over,” he said.

He also says it takes more than teachers to run a school, and that every position is equally valuable.

“Positions like teacher assistance, you look at transportation, maintenance, those types of positions. Those types of positions, we ask our local funding body to assist us in funding those positions because they’re critical support positions that we actually need in a daily operation,” Johnson said.

The United States is currently facing a national shortage of teachers, and because of that, Johnson says it will take over half a decade to replace an experienced teacher.

“It takes five to seven years to replace the experience of teachers. So we want to look at ways that we can recruit better teachers and more teachers. That’s our goal. To make sure every student has a teacher in front of them during the year,” Johnson said.

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