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Newly-named Lee's Summit superintendent faces questions over Hickman Mills case

Posted at 9:18 PM, Jan 17, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-17 23:07:16-05

As Lee's Summit gets set to hold a question-and-answer session with newly-named superintendent Dennis Carpenter on Wednesday, questions continue to be asked about a salary schedule change made during his time as Hickman Mills superintendent.

The salary schedule change, which was approved by the Hickman Mills School Board, was put in place to help the district deal with teachers leaving to other districts that had higher salaries for teachers with advanced degrees.

"We had actually talked informally about it for a number of years," explained Dan Osman, who served on the school board at the time of the change. "We knew we were losing teachers at a rate of about 20 percent each school year."

RELATED: Lee's Summit School Board president defends newly named superintendent

The salary schedule change went into effect for the 2015-16 school year, and Osman told 41 Action News that the decision was made after consulting with teachers, unions, administrators, and the public.

"The solution was to revise the salary schedule," he said. "We had to cut somewhere. Those cuts came from the top of the chart."

Osman said during the salary schedule discussion, many longtime teachers asked for their then-current salary to be grandfathered into the system.

However, Osman told 41 Action News that keeping their salaries the same for a year would have come with a big price tag.

"I wanted to grandfather teachers in," he explained. "It would have cost somewhere around $500,000 to grandfather everybody in in a single year."

The school board approved the measure, which Osman said Carpenter supported.

"Dr. Carpenter himself spearheaded this change to say, 'This is something that is important to the school district.' The school board took him up on that," he said. "I know that he was in favor of changing the salary schedule. Nobody liked losing teachers."

The salary schedule change for the 2015-16 school year is now the subject of an age discrimination lawsuit against the Hickman Mills School District.

The lawsuit, which was filed by 27 current and former teachers with over 500 years of combined experience, describes how the salary schedule put in place during Carpenter’s term as superintendent cut the salaries of the longtime teachers, while increasing the salaries of younger, less experienced ones.

 

 

 

According to the lawsuit, the salary schedule change resulted in some teachers seeing pay cuts as high as almost $13,000.

Osman told 41 Action News that at no point during the discussion over salary schedule changes did school board members bring up the ages of teachers impacted by the switch.

After leaving the school board in November 2016, Osman stands by the salary schedule decision made by the group.

"I really thought that this is the best course of action long term for the district," he told 41 Action News. "Not just fiscally, but also for the students in the district."

Dennis Carpenter was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, but the salary schedule change occurred during his time as Hickman Mills superintendent.

The question-and-answer session with Carpenter is being held Wednesday at Lee's Summit West High School at 5:15 p.m.

The meeting was previously scheduled to occur at Stansberry Leadership Center.

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Tom Dempsey can be reached at Tom.Dempsey@KSHB.com.

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