You can weigh in on Beaufort Co. teachers’ salaries at 2 upcoming community meetings
The Beaufort County School Board is holding two community meetings this week to discuss the 2022-23 school year budget and it wants the community’s input.
The meetings, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday starting at 6 p.m., are being held to promote transparency, according to school board Chairman David Striebinger.
The first meeting Wednesday will be held in the cafeteria of Bluffton High School. On Thursday, the board will meet with community members at Beaufort High School.
The meetings will consist of a presentation on the budget, after which community members may break off into small groups to discuss the budget before handing off their feedback to the board.
“We hope community taxpayers, parents, and our educators will attend one of our budget forums so they can learn about next year’s budget and provide feedback to the board,” Striebinger said in a press release.
’I feel like a transplant’
Topics that will be discussed include “instruction, administration, operations, and salaries,” according to the press release. At its regularly scheduled school board meeting last week, the board heard from educators in the community telling them that the cost of living in Beaufort County is too high and teachers need more money in order to afford to live where they teach.
A teacher at Robert Smalls International Academy who spoke out during a recent school board meeting said he and his wife have been living in the area for about a year and cannot find a house they can afford.
“Luckily, we are not in one of the apartments that raised their rent by 30%,” the teacher said. “When you can’t afford to live in a place, how am I able to invest in a community? ... I feel like a transplant that is waiting to be moved somewhere else.”
The board voted May 4 to give employees a $2,000 bonus that will be distributed in December. Full-time employees who remain working within the district by Nov. 15, 2022, will be eligible for the retention bonus. New full-time employees who remain working by that date will receive a $2,000 recruitment bonus. The one-time bonuses come from the district’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund and will total approximately $6 million.
Those who cannot attend the community meetings can give their input via BCSD Connected, an online platform where the community can leave feedback, suggestions and participate in surveys and polls.
The board aims to certify its budget for the upcoming school year by its next meeting May 17, officials said in the press release. The final reading of the budget will take place June 27.
This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 10:16 AM.
