School board to consider using COVID funding to address inequity in Nashville teacher pay

Members of the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education plan to consider using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding approved for COVID expenses, to address an inequality in pay raises for teachers.Last week Metro Council approved a 6 percent cost of living (COLA) raise for Metro employees but the budget only included a 4 percent COLA for school district employees.The discrepancy didn’t go unnoticed by school employees like Donna Clay.“I was so hurt to see everybody get 6 percent, but we only got 4. I still can’t afford to live where I want to live,” said Clay.The Inglewood Elementary School café employee was among those speaking out against the COLA discrepancy at Tuesday night’s school board meeting and multiple school board members themselves echoed her frustration.“We understand and we hear you about the 6 percent. Metro Council broke their tradition of funding the COLA for both MNPS and for Metro government as equal as they’ve done in the past. We are extremely disappointed in the council and Metro government not holding up to that tradition,” said Board Vice-Chair Freda Player (District 7). “We will continue to advocate for employees, and this is not the end of the conversation.”Player proposed revisiting the COLA discrepancy at next month’s board retreat where members are now planning to discuss a proposal by District 9 board member Abaigail Tylor to use ESSER money to give employees a one-time bonus.Tylor proposed spending $10 million of the district’s $134 million ESSER funds to give teachers and support staff a $1,000 bonus.“In light of this new discrepancy I think we owe it to our teachers and our staff to reassess our budget. While we may not have the funds to adjust the whole COLA rate, I think we do have the funds to offer at a minimum a one-time bonus,” said Tylor.  “Now we’re lucky that we still have access to ESSER funds for at least one more year and I strongly believe that that’s where we can find this money.”Utilizing ESSER funds may not be simple though.Director of Schools Dr. Adrienne Battle reminded board members that all ESSER spending needs to be approved by the state and any changes at this point would also involve cutting dollars from proposed ESSER funded programs.“I too am disappointed in the kind of break away from the percentage of COLA from all Metro employees,” said Dr. Battle. “There are not any unallocated funds in ESSER. Of course, they are one-time funds and they’ve been programmed based upon you know the investment of one-year, two-year, three-year, and so on and so forth.”District 3 board member Emily Masters expressed support for going through the process to move ESSER dollars around to provide a one-time bonus.  Masters said she believes such a move would send an important message to the district’s employees.“I think it’s completely inappropriate that they allocate a 6 percent COLA to Metro employees and our employees get a 4 percent,” said Masters. “Are there some areas where the funds have not already been spent where we can make a decision? We wanna skim this off the top of an ESSER program we had planned for so that we can do these one-time bonuses really as a show of good faith to our employees.”Masters and Tylor were the only board members who abstained from approving the district’s 2023/2024 budget that includes the 4 percent COLA raise.