Longevity Pay is Key to Keeping Veteran Teachers for Sharyland ISD

The district had fallen behind in teacher pay for the area and was seeing the consequences of that neglect in very real terms. More than 19 percent of its teachers were leaving each year, a very high attrition rate for the area. More disturbing was that fact that the leaving teachers were typically veterans with somewhere between five and 10 years of experience. Something had to change or the district would lose even more teachers as they looked for greener pastures in neighboring districts.

Leaders decided to try something other area districts weren’t doing. Dr. Sandra Reed, the district’s former superintendent, and district trustees opted to offer longevity pay to all professional employees. Approved in 2002, the district’s longevity pay plan offers teachers and other professional staff generous bonuses when they reach a five-year employment increment.

At the five-year mark, employees earn their first bonus of $2,500. The bonus increases $500 whenever an employee completes another five years of service, so at the 10-year mark, an employee earns a $3,000 bonus. Fifteen-year employees earn a $3,500 bonus, and so on. The bonuses top out at $7,500 for 40-year employees.

If you doubt that such an incentive can make a difference in teacher retention, you should talk to Yasmina Nye, executive director for human resources in Sharyland. “I’ve had people come in here who are considering moving and they stay to make the bonus time,” said Nye. Nye finds that when people stay, the additional time they spend in the district often has a cooling effect on their motivation to leave even after the bonus has made it to their bank account.

So far, 346 Sharyland employees have earned longevity bonuses. The district has made a significant financial commitment to show its employees that their service time is valued, paying out bonuses of more than $740,000 to date.

The longevity pay program was just the first of many steps the district has taken to retain its teachers. The next came after a change of superintendents.

Sharyland’s teacher pay still lagged other area districts when Scott Owings took over the district’s top job. With support from the school board, Owings has been the driving force in the district’s efforts to improve base teacher pay and provide targeted incentives to meet district needs. He’s taken an aggressive approach that appears to have paid off: Sharyland is now one of the teacher pay leaders in the area and provides stipends to teachers who work in critical shortage areas (math, science, special education, and bilingual/English as a Second Language).

The combined efforts have gotten results. The district’s teacher attrition rate, once a cause for concern, has dropped to an enviable 11 percent.

Next on Owings’ list is recommending an incentive to encourage teachers to give early notice if they intend to retire at the end of the year. Retiring teachers who give the district notice by March 1 could earn $50 per day for up to 20 days of unused sick leave—a maximum of $1,000. Sharyland’s board will consider this incentive in June.

Encouraging feedback

The district’s retention efforts aren’t confined to salaries and incentives.

Every two years, district administrators encourage employee feedback by conducting a climate survey. Employees complete the survey anonymously and the feedback is used by leaders in their overall evaluation of each campus. Administrators urge employees to be deliberate and frank in their evaluations and remind them that the campus receives a summary of responses—nothing that can be connected to any individual.

The survey focuses on curriculum and instruction, staff development, school climate, monitoring and assessment, and student discipline and behavior. Employees can respond to questions about campus needs in writing if they choose. Nye said the survey is evidence that the board cares about teachers and wants to make Sharyland a good place to work.

The district offers a mentor program to ease inexperienced teachers into the job. It surveys new teachers at the end of their first year to make sure they received the help they needed and get their suggestions on ways to improve the program in years to come.

The district conducts exit interviews and asks leaving employees to rate the district on working conditions including their relationship with their supervisor, the adequacy of job orientation and training, resources, district support, employee benefits, and district communication. Leavers are encouraged to state what they would do differently if they were leading a campus and asked how the position they left could be improved for the employee that takes their place.

The district prides itself on having strict student discipline, strong academics, and strong athletics. “We’ve been able to keep to those values. We still have a student dress code and we enforce it. Teachers appreciate it,” Nye said.