MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2021 Regular Session
To: Education; Appropriations
By: Representatives McGee, McCarty, Pigott, Mangold, McLean, Gibbs (72nd), Felsher, Haney, Summers
AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 37-19-7, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO DELETE THE CAP ON THE NUMBER OF NATIONAL BOARD-CERTIFIED NURSES AND SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGISTS AND AUDIOLOGISTS EMPLOYED BY SCHOOL DISTRICTS WHO ARE ALLOWED TO RECEIVE THE SALARY SUPPLEMENT FOR NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION; TO REQUIRE THE PAYMENT OF AN ANNUAL SALARY SUPPLEMENT TO STATE-LICENSED ATHLETIC TRAINERS EMPLOYED BY A SCHOOL DISTRICT WHO HAVE ACQUIRED NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. Section 37-19-7, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
37-19-7. (1) The allowance
in the Mississippi Adequate Education Program for teachers' salaries in each * * * public school district
shall be determined and paid in accordance with the scale for teachers'
salaries as provided in this subsection. For teachers holding the following
types of licenses or the equivalent as determined by the State Board of
Education, and the following number of years of teaching experience, the scale
shall be as follows:
2019-2020 AND SUBSEQUENT SCHOOL YEARS MINIMUM SALARY SCHEDULE
Years
Exp. AAAA AAA AA A
0 40,608.00 39,444.00 38,280.00 35,890.00
1 40,608.00 39,444.00 38,280.00 35,890.00
2 40,608.00 39,444.00 38,280.00 35,890.00
3 41,402.00 40,171.00 38,940.00 36,385.00
4 42,196.00 40,898.00 39,600.00 36,880.00
5 42,990.00 41,625.00 40,260.00 37,375.00
6 43,784.00 42,352.00 40,920.00 37,870.00
7 44,578.00 43,079.00 41,580.00 38,365.00
8 45,372.00 43,806.00 42,240.00 38,860.00
9 46,166.00 44,533.00 42,900.00 39,355.00
10 46,960.00 45,260.00 43,560.00 39,850.00
11 47,754.00 45,987.00 44,220.00 40,345.00
12 48,548.00 46,714.00 44,880.00 40,840.00
13 49,342.00 47,441.00 45,540.00 41,335.00
14 50,136.00 48,168.00 46,200.00 41,830.00
15 50,930.00 48,895.00 46,860.00 42,325.00
16 51,724.00 49,622.00 47,520.00 42,820.00
17 52,518.00 50,349.00 48,180.00 43,315.00
18 53,312.00 51,076.00 48,840.00 43,810.00
19 54,106.00 51,803.00 49,500.00 44,305.00
20 54,900.00 52,530.00 50,160.00 44,800.00
21 55,694.00 53,257.00 50,820.00 45,295.00
22 56,488.00 53,984.00 51,480.00 45,790.00
23 57,282.00 54,711.00 52,140.00 46,285.00
24 58,076.00 55,438.00 52,800.00 46,780.00
25 60,930.00 58,225.00 55,520.00 49,335.00
26 61,724.00 58,952.00 56,180.00 49,830.00
27 62,518.00 59,679.00 56,840.00 50,325.00
28 63,312.00 60,406.00 57,500.00 50,820.00
29 64,106.00 61,133.00 58,160.00 51,315.00
30 64,900.00 61,860.00 58,820.00 51,810.00
31 65,694.00 62,587.00 59,480.00 52,305.00
32 66,488.00 63,314.00 60,140.00 52,800.00
33 67,282.00 64,041.00 60,800.00 53,295.00
34 68,076.00 64,768.00 61,460.00 53,790.00
35
& above 68,870.00 65,495.00 62,120.00 54,285.00
It is the intent of the Legislature that any state funds made available for salaries of licensed personnel in excess of the funds paid for such salaries for the 1986-1987 school year shall be paid to licensed personnel pursuant to a personnel appraisal and compensation system implemented by the State Board of Education. The State Board of Education shall have the authority to adopt and amend rules and regulations as are necessary to establish, administer and maintain the system.
All teachers employed on a full-time basis shall be paid a minimum salary in accordance with the above scale. However, no school district shall receive any funds under this section for any school year during which the local supplement paid to any individual teacher shall have been reduced to a sum less than that paid to that individual teacher for performing the same duties from local supplement during the immediately preceding school year. The amount actually spent for the purposes of group health and/or life insurance shall be considered as a part of the aggregate amount of local supplement but shall not be considered a part of the amount of individual local supplement.
The level of professional
training of each teacher to be used in establishing the salary allotment for
the teachers for each year shall be determined by the type of valid teacher's
license issued to those teachers on or before October 1 of the current school
year. * * *
However, * * *
school districts are authorized, in their discretion, to negotiate the salary
levels applicable to * * *
licensed employees who are receiving retirement benefits from the
retirement system of another state, and the annual experience increment
provided above in Section 37-19-7 shall not be applicable to any such retired
certificated employee.
(2) (a) The following employees shall receive an annual salary supplement in the amount of Six Thousand Dollars ($6,000.00), plus fringe benefits, in addition to any other compensation to which the employee may be entitled:
(i) Any licensed teacher who has met the requirements and acquired a Master Teacher certificate from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and who is employed by a local school board or the State Board of Education as a teacher and not as an administrator. Such teacher shall submit documentation to the State Department of Education that the certificate was received prior to October 15 in order to be eligible for the full salary supplement in the current school year, or the teacher shall submit such documentation to the State Department of Education prior to February 15 in order to be eligible for a prorated salary supplement beginning with the second term of the school year.
(ii) A licensed
nurse who has met the requirements and acquired a certificate from the National
Board for Certification of School Nurses, Inc., and who is employed by a local
school board or the State Board of Education as a school nurse and not as an
administrator. The licensed school nurse shall submit documentation to the
State Department of Education that the certificate was received before October
15 in order to be eligible for the full salary supplement in the current school
year, or the licensed school nurse shall submit the documentation to the State
Department of Education before February 15 in order to be eligible for a
prorated salary supplement beginning with the second term of the school year. * * *
(iii) Any licensed school counselor who has met the requirements and acquired a National Certified School Counselor (NCSC) endorsement from the National Board of Certified Counselors and who is employed by a local school board or the State Board of Education as a counselor and not as an administrator. Such licensed school counselor shall submit documentation to the State Department of Education that the endorsement was received prior to October 15 in order to be eligible for the full salary supplement in the current school year, or the licensed school counselor shall submit such documentation to the State Department of Education prior to February 15 in order to be eligible for a prorated salary supplement beginning with the second term of the school year. However, any school counselor who started the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards process for school counselors between June 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004, and completes the requirements and acquires the Master Teacher certificate shall be entitled to the master teacher supplement, and those counselors who complete the process shall be entitled to a one-time reimbursement for the actual cost of the process as outlined in paragraph (b) of this subsection.
(iv) Any licensed
speech-language pathologist and audiologist who has met the requirements and
acquired a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association and any certified academic language therapist (CALT) who has met
the certification requirements of the Academic Language Therapy Association and
who is employed by a local school board * * *. The licensed speech-language pathologist and audiologist
and certified academic language therapist shall submit documentation to the
State Department of Education that the certificate or endorsement was received
before October 15 in order to be eligible for the full salary supplement in the
current school year, or the licensed speech-language pathologist and
audiologist and certified academic language therapist shall submit the
documentation to the State Department of Education before February 15 in order
to be eligible for a prorated salary supplement beginning with the second term
of the school year. * * *
(v) Any licensed athletic trainer who has met the requirements and acquired Board Certification for the Athletic Trainer from the Board of Certification, Inc., and who is employed by a local school board or the State Board of Education as an athletic trainer and not as an administrator. The licensed athletic trainer shall submit documentation to the State Department of Education that the certificate was received before October 15 in order to be eligible for the full salary supplement in the current school year, or the licensed athletic trainer shall submit the documentation to the State Department of Education before February 15 in order to be eligible for a prorated salary supplement beginning with the second term of the school year. The total number of licensed athletic trainers eligible for a salary supplement under this subparagraph (v) may not exceed twenty (20).
(b) An employee shall be reimbursed for the actual cost of completing each component of acquiring the certificate or endorsement, excluding any costs incurred for postgraduate courses, not to exceed Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) for each component, not to exceed four (4) components, for a teacher, school counselor or speech-language pathologist and audiologist, regardless of whether or not the process resulted in the award of the certificate or endorsement. A local school district or any private individual or entity may pay the cost of completing the process of acquiring the certificate or endorsement for any employee of the school district described under paragraph (a), and the State Department of Education shall reimburse the school district for such cost, regardless of whether or not the process resulted in the award of the certificate or endorsement. If a private individual or entity has paid the cost of completing the process of acquiring the certificate or endorsement for an employee, the local school district may agree to directly reimburse the individual or entity for such cost on behalf of the employee.
(c) All salary
supplements, fringe benefits and process reimbursement authorized under this
subsection shall be paid directly by the State Department of Education to the
local school district and shall be in addition to its * * * adequate education program
allotments and not a part thereof in accordance with regulations promulgated by
the State Board of Education. Local school districts shall not reduce the
local supplement paid to any employee receiving such salary supplement, and the
employee shall receive any local supplement to which employees with similar
training and experience otherwise are entitled. However, an educational employee
shall receive the salary supplement in the amount of Six Thousand Dollars ($6,000.00)
for only one (1) of the qualifying certifications authorized under paragraph
(a) of this subsection. No school district shall provide more than one (1)
annual salary supplement under the provisions of this subsection to any one individual
employee holding multiple qualifying national certifications.
(d) If an employee for whom such cost has been paid, in full or in part, by a local school district or private individual or entity fails to complete the certification or endorsement process, the employee shall be liable to the school district or individual or entity for all amounts paid by the school district or individual or entity on behalf of that employee toward his or her certificate or endorsement.
(3) The following employees shall receive an annual salary supplement in the amount of Four Thousand Dollars ($4,000.00), plus fringe benefits, in addition to any other compensation to which the employee may be entitled:
Effective July 1, 2016, if funds are available for that purpose, any licensed teacher who has met the requirements and acquired a Master Teacher Certificate from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and who is employed in a public school district located in one (1) of the following counties: Claiborne, Adams, Jefferson, Wilkinson, Amite, Bolivar, Coahoma, Leflore, Quitman, Sharkey, Issaquena, Sunflower, Washington, Holmes, Yazoo and Tallahatchie. The salary supplement awarded under the provisions of this subsection (3) shall be in addition to the salary supplement awarded under the provisions of subsection (2) of this section.
Teachers who meet the qualifications for a salary supplement under this subsection (3) who are assigned for less than one (1) full year or less than full time for the school year shall receive the salary supplement in a prorated manner, with the portion of the teacher's assignment to the critical geographic area to be determined as of June 15th of the school year.
(4) (a) This section shall
be known and may be cited as the "Mississippi Performance-Based Pay (MPBP)"
plan. In addition to the minimum base pay described in this section, only
after full funding of MAEP and if funds are available for that purpose, the
State of Mississippi may provide monies from state funds to school districts for
the purposes of rewarding * * *certified licensed teachers, administrators and
nonlicensed personnel at individual schools showing improvement in student test
scores. The MPBP plan shall be developed by the State Department of Education based
on the following criteria:
(i) It is the express intent of this legislation that the MPBP plan shall utilize only existing standards of accreditation and assessment as established by the State Board of Education.
(ii) To ensure that all of Mississippi's teachers, administrators and nonlicensed personnel at all schools have equal access to the monies set aside in this section, the MPBP program shall be designed to calculate each school's performance as determined by the school's increase in scores from the prior school year. The MPBP program shall be based on a standardized scores rating where all levels of schools can be judged in a statistically fair and reasonable way upon implementation. At the end of each year, after all student achievement scores have been standardized, the State Department of Education shall implement the MPBP plan.
(iii) To ensure all teachers cooperate in the spirit of teamwork, individual schools shall submit a plan to the local school district to be approved before the beginning of each school year beginning July 1, 2008. The plan shall include, but not be limited to, how all teachers, regardless of subject area, and administrators will be responsible for improving student achievement for their individual school.
(b) The State Board of
Education shall develop the processes and procedures for designating schools
eligible to participate in the MPBP. State assessment results, growth in student
achievement at individual schools and other measures deemed appropriate in
designating successful student achievement shall be used in establishing MPBP
criteria. * * *
(5) (a) * * * If
funds are available for that purpose, each school in Mississippi shall have
mentor teachers, as defined by Sections 37-9-201 through 37-9-213, who shall
receive additional base compensation provided for by the State Legislature in
the amount of One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) per each beginning teacher that
is being mentored. The additional state compensation shall be limited to those
mentor teachers that provide mentoring services to beginning teachers. For the
purposes of such funding, a beginning teacher shall be defined as any teacher
in any school in Mississippi that has less than one (1) year of classroom
experience teaching in a public school. For the purposes of such funding, no
full-time academic teacher shall mentor more than two (2) beginning teachers.
(b) To be eligible for this state funding, the individual school must have a classroom management program approved by the local school board.
(6) Effective with the 2014-2015 school year, the school districts participating in the Pilot Performance-Based Compensation System pursuant to Section 37-19-9 may award additional teacher and administrator pay based thereon.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2021.