The Lake County Education Association (LCEA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have reached agreement on the details of a state-endorsed bonus plan for instructional personnel that will allow payments to be disbursed to employees by December 20.

“I am grateful to those individuals who represented the School Board and our bargaining units for their collaborative and thoughtful work to ensure the distribution of funds provided through the Best and Brightest Program to all eligible teacher assistants, instructional personnel and administrators prior to the holidays,” Superintendent Diane Kornegay said.

Through the state’s recently revised Best and Brightest bonus program, Lake County received about $4.27 million. About $615,000 went to charter schools. The remainder was used for bonuses.“It is promising that we can use the money from Tallahassee to reward all of our Lake County ‘Best and Brightest’ teachers,” said LCEA President Stuart Klatte.

The state-mandated retention bonus for classroom teachers is in the amount of $2,500 for those rated highly effective in the 2018-19 school year and $1,000 for those rated effective, only if they taught in a qualifying school for two consecutive years, including the current year. To qualify, a school must have improved an average of 3 percentage points or more in the percentage of total possible points achieved for determining school grades over the prior three years. The qualifying schools in Lake, as determined by the Florida Department of Education, are:

  • Cypress Ridge, Eustis Heights, Leesburg, Lost Lake, Pine Ridge, Sawgrass Bay, and Seminole Springs elementary schools;
  • East Ridge, Mount Dora, Tavares, Umatilla, and Windy Hill middle schools;
  •  Lake Minneola, South Lake and Tavares high schools; and
  • Round Lake, Minneola, Spring Creek, and Imagine South Lake charter schools.

The state also mandated a $5,000 bonus for principals. To qualify, principals must have served at a qualifying school for at least four consecutive years.

Districts were allowed some flexibility with recruitment and recognition bonus amounts.

Recruitment bonuses, according to the state’s criteria, are for newly hired classroom teachers who are content experts in math, science, computer science, reading or civics. In Lake, the recruitment bonus will be $1,000, an amount agreed upon by both unions through bargaining.

With the remaining money, the two unions agreed to allocate a $1,000 bonus for all instructional employees (not just classroom teachers) who were rated effective or highly effective the preceding year and were selected, based on performance criteria and policies adopted by the district. Additionally, a $600 bonus will go to paraprofessionals, including teacher assistants, lab facilitators and sign language interpreters. They are represented by the SEIU but the state groups them with instructional employees for purposes of the bonus.

“It is rewarding for some of our non-instructional employees to be included in the state’s Best and Brightest bonus package,” said SEIU President Kim Cronin. “But it is unfortunate that there are over 1,000 other employees who contribute to making a successful school day who are forgotten.”

The district and the unions are continuing to negotiate contracts for the 2019-20 school year.

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