With the passage of Montezuma-Cortez School District’s 3.9 mill levy on Nov. 5, teacher salaries will rise to an estimated $47,000, up $7,000 from the current $40,000, according to the district. Paraprofessional salaries will increase by $2,000.
Currently, 205 teachers and 70 paraprofessionals in the district will benefit from the levy.
It will take a little time for the new salaries to come into effect. First, the election must be certified by the Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder Kim Percell.
In an email to The Journal, Percell said the results should be ready by the end of November.
The district will begin receiving mill levy funds during the next tax season, according to Montezuma-Cortez Superintendent Tom Burris. Once the money is received, it will begin to be reflected in teacher salaries in July, which is considered the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
Though the new salary schedule won’t come into effect officially until July, Burris said the district hopes to start giving teachers some of the money before then.
“Our new salary schedule will reflect the increase in July,” Burris said. “But we’re actually talking about how could we go ahead and give a bonus or a stipend or whatever this spring when we do have the money.”
Despite the increase in salaries, Burris said the salary schedule established when he came into the district will not change. When the base salary changes, it will be reflected on the salary schedule.
The district also has “quite a few” open positions, specifically for paraprofessionals and long-term substitutes.
Another question circulating in the community revolves around next year’s calendar and working hours for staff. Some Facebook users have discussed the possibility of a five-day workweek.
A potential five-day workweek was also mentioned by the District Accountability Committee during its meeting Monday.
On Tuesday, Burris told The Journal that the calendar for the next school year is being worked out by the district’s calendar committee. Talk about a return to a five-day workweek has occurred because board members have said they would revisit discussions of workweeks after three years with a four-day week passed.
This year is the third year.
When it comes to planning a calendar, Burris explained that the district must follow Colorado Revised Statute 22-32-109.
This statute states that schools must have 1,080 hours of face-to-face time with high school and middle school students planned per school year. Elementary schools must have 990 hours.
Though all districts are required to plan for 1,080 hours of instruction time, Colorado Revised Statute 22-33-104 acknowledges that students might not make it to every school day or that school days could be interrupted by snow days or other obstacles.
Because of this, the statute requires that secondary students attend 1,056 of the 1,080 hours and elementary students 986 hours of their set 990 hours.
“In no event shall said schools be scheduled to have fewer than one thousand, eighty hours of planned teacher-pupil instruction and teacher-pupil contact during the school year for secondary school pupils in high school, middle school or junior high school or less than nine hundred ninety hours of such instruction and contact for elementary school pupils,” the statute states.
These hours don’t include lunch periods or periods between classes, but reference instructional or “contact” time. Teacher work days, parent teacher conferences, classroom work and other similar work is considered “contract” days and do not count toward the 1,080 hours, per the statute.
To ensure they adhere to the statutes, Burris noted that the calendar committee will be creating a calendar that accounts for those hours.
