The Board Of Education (BOE) approved Federal Programs Salary Allocations for the 2014-15, which is a combination of federal grant money from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding. The grant money for both programs are in place to assist a school district with expenses related to improve the education of children; in the case of NCLB, the emphasis is on children from low-income families while IDEA address specialized services for children classified as having learning as well as other disabilities.
At $458,717 for the 2014-15 school year, NCLB funding saw a decrease of almost $12,000. While the salaries paid from the grant increased minimally to $339,614, the number of teaching staff decreased from 17 to 14 and the reaming amount allocated to other related expenses, such as instruction material, decreased by a little over $13,000 from $132,219 to $119,103.
IDEA funding increased by over $23,000 to bring this school year’s grant amount to $471,810. A majority of that increase – over $21,000 – went to related expenses while staff was reduced by one, with salaries paid from the grant increasing slightly to $320,043 for this school year.
The amounts are relevant since less staff or material paid by these grants impact the educational structure of students who require more individual instruction. Additionally, since salaries paid from NCLB and IDEA correlate with contracted raises, any such increases that are negotiated starting next year for the RPEA teacher’s contract will further impact staff and related expenses paid by those grants in years to come.
RPEA contract talks are set to start in 2015 for the next three-year contract. The most recent contract increased salaries by 2% annually while the contract previous to it had an average annual salary increase of 3.9% for three years.