Seth Koch remained seated in the back row of chairs while addressing his concerns and offering his input to the school board. PHOTO BY JONATHAN MEYER

Early in the morning on Monday, June 9 the South Tama Board of Education, and noticeably more members of the community gathered to partake in the scheduled 7 a.m. meeting.

Sticking with the recent trend of educators occupying public comments, longtime teacher and now substitute teacher George Kuhter voiced his support with revising the substitute pay policy.

“An item I’d like to bring up to the board is the possibility of changing the wording of the sub policy and possible compensation for subs. This past spring spring, I spent close to a whole semester in middle school, doing long term subs, and I worked twice, encountered with the idea that was brought up at the last board meeting that there was an interference in the consecutive days that I’m serving and I was going to have to start over again from the long term to the initial sub pay, and I talked with Mr. Cain the first time we worked something out and the second time there was a miscommunication, and those types of things,” he said.

Kuhter’s comments and recommendation comes off the heels of Diane Kesl detailing her experience and support for revision of the policy at the last board meeting.

Recently retired teacher Seth Koch had his concern placed on the agenda for this meeting, wanting to discuss benefits that coincide with his early retirement package, and some recommendations to the board.

“I would hope the board would consider, there are four days that I took as family sick leave before the board enacted the incentive in December that I would like to recover and have those days back. I took off Sept. 24, Oct. 15, Nov. 19 (and) Dec. 26, to transport my dad to his oncology appointments in Davenport. Under the idea that none of those days had any monetary value to them whatsoever, because from the last 32 years, when early retirement incentive has been calculated the early retirement incentive was never based on the number of sick leave or family illness leave day that you had left. So in my mind, since you did not act on that until December 9, it was discriminatory towards me when I had used those days, thinking they had no monetary value, and all of a sudden on December 9th, they had monetary value that $180 a day. To put that in retrospect, go back to what Mr. Kuhter talked about with subbing earlier, is that in the month of May, I subbed in two different classrooms for a grand total at least six full days, where a sub did not have to be called and saved the district $840,” Koch continued. “So if you look at the 840 of the district say by not having to hire a sub for those two positions, and just in the month of May, you’re not losing any money.”

Koch asked the group when he could expect an answer from them on recovering the days and their monetary value.

Board president Elizabeth Dolezal responded that it could be brought back as an action item at the next meeting.

Koch recommended that the board decide on if they are going to offer early retirement for the upcoming school year, they have that decision made by August 1, so staff considering can have ample time to decide and review their options.

Within the posted board agenda, a closed session was listed and Iowa code 21.5(1)(i) was cited.

It reads, “To evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when a closed session is necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation and that individual requests a closed session.”

Listed under the citation of code, was “Action on closed session item.”

To which Katie Mathern, board secretary, responded by email saying “They moved to table the action item from the closed session until the next meeting.”

The next board meeting is scheduled for June 23, at 7 a.m.