CISD Trustees to Consider Teacher Raises and Retention Bonuses Tonight

(New Braunfels, TX) -- The Comal ISD School Board will consider approving a step raise and retention bonus program for teachers and other staff members in the CISD when they meet tonight.

The $1000 retention bonus would be for all returning staff members in the district, while the step raise program would be for teachers, counselors, nurses, and librarians (in other words, staff members that deal directly with students).

The district says they will pay for those raises and bonuses by taking 2-million dollars that wasn’t used in last year’s budget and applying it to the upcoming 2012/2013 budget.

The district is facing as much as a 1.2-million dollar budget deficit this next school year, but current CISD Superintendent Dr. Marc Walker and the school board say they will be balancing that budget by increasing class size across the district.

The proposed budget calls for class sizes to go up about 1 student per classroom at the elementary and middle school level, bringing elementary schools in the CISD to a class size of 23 to 1 and middle schools to 22 to 1. There would be no change at the high school level, leaving that ratio at 21.5 to 1.

The Comal ISD School Board will consider whether to officially adopt the step raise and retention bonus program into next year’s budget at tonight’s school board meeting, which is set for 6pm at the CISD Support Services building, on the northbound I-35 access road, just north of Hwy 46.