The Carroll Community School District (CCSD) Board of Education began the negotiation process for staff salaries during Monday night’s board meeting, presenting each groups’ initial proposal. The Carroll Education Association (CEA) negotiations the salaries of teachers, counselors, librarians, and nurses for the district. CCSD Seventh Grade Reading teacher, Jesse Strong, read CEA’s request for negotiations, not providing a number as state supplemental aid (SSA) and teacher salary supplement (TSS) funding has not been approved yet by legislation.
Strong advocated for teachers who were stuck in between the gaps of not receiving a raise, saying a five-year teacher was making less than a first-year who was paid the new salary minimum. Superintendent Dr. Casey Berlau presented the district’s initial offer, saying minimums will be bumped up again to meet legislative requirements.
The 2.5 percent of increases is applied to the CEA group salaries, not to each individual salary. Carroll High School (CHS) Teacher Associate, Deb Grote, presented Carroll Education Support Association (CESA), focusing on the salaries of teacher and library associates. Grote says CESA’s initial proposal is to increase associate’s pay one dollar per hour and to adopt language in the support staff’s contracts to ensure they will be paid even on shortened days due to weather.
Berlau says the district is proposing an increase to all CESA salaries as a whole and not individually, like the offer presented to CEA.
No action was taken as this was just the beginning of the negotiation process. Administration and board members will not meet with both groups in the next few weeks to propose other ideas before final offers are presented. Salaries will be approved within the next month, to give the district time to establish and finalize the fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget.
