Livingston Parish School Board office
A task force of all Livingston Parish Public Schools stakeholders will search for a solution to the district’s employee pay problem — the top topic of conversation in one of the state’s largest and most underpaid school systems.
This group of stakeholders will also research another topic that could have long-lasting effects — a four-day school week.
The task force was created during the April 5 meeting of the district’s Cost Savings Committee, which met more than a week after Livingston Parish voters rejected a divisive tax proposal to boost school employee salaries.
The special committee will be led by board member Brad Sharp, of District 1, and board member Kellee Hennessy Dickerson, of District 2. Others to be named to the task force will be a bus driver, a maintenance worker, a custodian, a teacher, a principal, department supervisors, parents, a nurse, and others from the general public, though more can be added.
Its main objective will be searching for ways to boost employee pay within the school system’s existing budget and see where cuts can be made.
“We want to get all of these people into a room and hash it out,” said board member Katelyn Lockhart Cockerham, of District 7.
The creation of the task force marked the district’s latest step to address employee wages after voters rejected a one-cent sales tax proposal on March 25. If passed, all 3,700 Livingston Parish Public Schools employees would have received a 10-percent pay raise, enough to push them to the top for school pay in the region.
But the tax was heavily debated in conservative Livingston Parish, which rarely passes new taxes, in the weeks leading up to the vote. Ultimately, voters turned down the tax, with 54 percent voting against it. The election drew a 20-percent turnout of the parish’s 86,000 registered voters, the highest parish-wide turnout for a spring ballot in at least 15 years.
Since its failure, school employees have voiced their disappointment with the outcome and frustration with their continued low pay, leading to packed School Board meetings, a nixed job fair, and two school cancellations due to an apparent strike.
Others have expressed concerns that the failed tax will lead to more qualified professionals leaving for higher-paying jobs in neighboring parishes — an “out-migration” school leaders say is already happening.
Since the tax’s failure, the district has taken multiple steps to alleviate teacher workloads. Those include scheduling parent conferences during a teacher’s contracted work time, giving principals discretion to discontinue any non-essential club or activity outside the sponsor’s contracted work period, and no longer requiring employees to work after-hours athletic events.
The biggest change came during a special meeting of the School Board on April 5, when board members voted unanimously to dismiss students on May 19, a week earlier than scheduled. Teachers will be allowed to work virtually from then until May 26, their final contracted day.
But some teachers referred to those measures as “a Band-Aid” that doesn’t address the real problem, which the newly-created task force will look to solve — low wages.
Dickerson, who publicly opposed the sales tax, said she has a list of suggestions the task force will look at when it meets. Those include trimming each department by 10 percent, reworking existing taxes to put more money toward salaries, hiring an outside company to conduct an independent audit of the school system, and lowering insurance premiums.
She also suggested giving raises to teachers and support staff before other positions, arguing those positions are “on the frontlines” and are the ones struggling most to make ends meet.
“I’m trying to put it where it needs to go first,” Dickerson said.
School four days a week
The other topic the task force will research is a four-day work week, a transition that is gaining traction nationwide.
Tamara Cupit, president of the Livingston Federation of Teachers, said there are a handful of Louisiana school districts that have made the switch, with a handful more contemplating the move. She also said hundreds more across the country have gone to a four-day week, with nearly half the schools in Missouri and Colorado making the change.
Cupit cited research that says a four-day school week can save “20 percent of an annual budget without cutting staff or positions or hours.”
“Is that enough to provide a raise?” Cupit asked during the meeting. “I don’t know. The task force should be exploring that.”
However, Cupit and others raised questions that’ll have to be answered, such as: Would a four-day school week mean longer school days or a longer school year?
“I don’t think we can make a decision on this today,” Cupit said. “There are too many questions we all have.”
Superintendent Joe Murphy echoed those comments by Cupit, calling it “a complicated issue with far-reaching implications.”
“Any expectation to transition to this for the 2023-24 year is just not realistic,” Murphy said. “There are so many moving parts in this and so many things that have to be considered and so many things are impacted.
“However, it is my absolute belief that we should do everything to research and discuss a four-day week.”
