The Shawnee Mission Board of Education will need to decide by next month whether to put a new bond issue before area voters this fall — a move that, if approved, would allow the reallocation of some expenses and open up funding to hire dozens of additional secondary teachers, a key step to addressing the workload issues that dominated this year’s contentious contract negotiations. But the move would require a tax increase for district patrons, and wouldn’t lead to substantial workload reductions for a couple of years. Superintendent Mike Fulton on Monday presented the board with the results of a study by the group tasked with addressing the strategic plan goals of reducing secondary teachers’ daily class load from six sections to five, as is standard in neighboring districts. To achieve that goal, the district would need to hire 39 new high school teachers at a projected cost of $2.9 million and 22 new middle school teachers at a projected cost of $1.7 million.
(Read more: Shawnee Mission Post)
