Durham Schools offer classified staff raise, but final approval pending

The Durham School Board took a step towards better pay for classified staff on Thursday, proposing pay schedules for the upcoming school year.

This comes after months of campaigning by employees who lost their originally proposed raises due to budget constraints in January.

Employees are cautiously optimistic.

While the board approved their proposed budget, it only guarantees at least an 11% raise on last year's pay for classified staff.

Raises might be higher if needed to reach market rates.

Symone Kiddoo, DAE President, sees this as a positive move.

“They want to see the district really show some effort to reflect how much they value them as workers and increasing market based ph is a great way to do that,” Kiddoo said.

The proposed budget includes a significant investment.

Over $8 million has been requested to fund these pay increases.

“It really reflects that people understand that public education is in a real crisis right now and we need to make big bold action to fix this public staffing exodus that we are facing,” Kiddoo said.

However, final approval rests outside the school board's hands.

Both the county and the state need to adopt their budgets before these pay schedules become final.

Implementation details or how to pay employees future raises will be ironed out by the board after final pay schedules are approved in the fall.