Board OKs two new hires
By Steve Herring
Published in News on July 17, 2015 1:46 PM
The Wayne County Board of Education Thursday morning voted 3-2 to hire two assistant superintendents after two board members voiced concerns about employee morale, contract length and salary parity.
Tamara Berman-Ishie was hired as the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and Dr. Yvette Smith as assistant superintendent for human resources and professional development.
Their starting salaries will be $109,959 with three-year contracts that include annual pay increases of 4 percent. They will start work Monday, Aug. 3.
Former assistant superintendent for human resources Dr. Marvin McCoy's annual salary was $83,952 with an evaluative local supplement of $7,500. Former assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Dr. Sandra McCullen's annual salary (if she worked 12 months) was $131,595.60 with an ending yearly local supplement of $32,898.84 during her term as interim superintendent. Her annual salary as assistant superintendent was $120,069 (based on 12 months).
Board members Dr. Dwight Cannon and Pat Burden, who voted no, at first asked to be recused from the vote. But board attorney Jack Edwards reminded them that board policy only allows recusal when there is a conflict of interest.
Voting yes were Chris West, Arnold Flowers and Eddie Radford. Board members Rick Pridgen and Jennifer Strickland were out of town and unable to attend the special session.
The vote had been delayed from last Friday after Pridgen questioned making the appointments prior to the application deadline of July 15.
One or two other applications were received after that meeting, Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore said.
The names recommended Thursday were the same that had been recommended last week, he said.
Ms. Smith is currently chief academic officer and assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Danville County Public Schools in Danville. Va.
She began her education career with Wayne County Public Schools in 1993 as a teacher at Northeast Elementary School. Since then she has worked as an assistant principal at Northeast Elementary; as a principal with Durham Public Schools; education consultant with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction; instructional support consultant with the U.S. Department of Education; and was the director of secondary education-Title I with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in Charlotte.
Ms. Smith holds both a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from North Carolina Central University. She holds master's degree in school administration from Campbell University and an educational leadership specialist degree from Wingate University.
This fall, Ms. Smith will complete a doctorate degree in educational leadership and supervision from Wingate University.
Ms. Berman-Ishie has 21 years of education experience and has served with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction since 2008 in both her present position and as a high school portfolio manager.
She began her education career in 1993 as a high school social studies/English instructor in Cambridge, Mass. Since then, she has worked as the head of upper school for a charter school in Lawrence, Mass.; assistant principal with Carteret High School in Beaufort; and was the director of middle and secondary education for Carteret County Public Schools.
Ms. Berman-Ishie holds a bachelor's degree in history with a concentration in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts and a master's degree in school leadership from Harvard University.
Ms. Burden was bothered about the level of the base salary and how it would increase over the life of the contract while the base salaries of other central office staff would not.
Dunsmore said his hiring recommendations had been influenced by the state's decision to cut funding for Department of Public Instruction's support services for school systems. Also, by law, the length of the contract is tied to the length of the superintendent's contract, he said.
"We rely very heavily on that professional development because we just can't go out and hire that expertise," he said. "My goal is to get more people in who can help offset that."
West and Flowers argued that the other staff members would still receive evaluative supplements of $7,500.
"Their (two employees') base salary with the 4 percent increase, the way that I understand it, is going to be less than if they had gotten the evaluative supplement of $7,500," West said.
Mrs. Burden said she considers the supplement as a bonus for good work, but that it does not increase the base salary like the 4 percent does.
"But in the long run even over a period of 10 years at a 4 percent increase, the evaluative supplement of $7,500 per year is going to far outweigh the 4 percent," West said.
"But they (the two new employees) are starting off about $25,000 more," Mrs. Burden said.
That is because of where they fall on the pay scale, West said.
"At the end of the three-year contract we can either retain these people and keep them and renegotiate the contract," Flowers said. "Some folks have a one-year contract because we want to give the superintendent time to evaluate. As far as the money we are paying these folks, like I said before, I am going to expect a whole lot out of them."
Flowers said he thinks the county would put itself into a box if it continues only to hire local people.
"I have never been an advocate for only hiring people that are currently in the system," he said. "You set up a system like that in my opinion you can build an ivory tower that operates off a buddy system.
"Everybody who works for Wayne County Public Schools, in my opinion, needs to feel like when a job comes open it is going be available to them and they will be considered, but it is going to be available to somebody else."
"But there are people who feel that their livelihood is in jeopardy," Cannon said. "I think we need to deal with that."