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Pipestone Area Schools (PAS) Board members during their April 28 meeting approved new contracts for educational support professionals, which includes paraprofessionals, custodians, and secretarial staff.
The two-year contracts are in effect retroactively from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2026. The contracts include $1 per hour raises for fiscal year 2024-25 and 75 cents per hour raises for fiscal year 2025-26. The minimum rate of pay for 2024-25 will be $16.70 per hour and the minimum rate of pay for 2025-26 will be $17.40 per hour.
Superintendent Klint Willert said later in the week that other changes in the contracts included a new provision that allows the district to recognize previous related and similar work experience when determining the rate of pay for a new employee, free activity passes to attend school events, and other clarifications and adjustments to language.
The school board’s negotiation committee, which includes Brad Carson, Mark Hiniker and Daphne Likness, started meeting with representatives of the educational support staff in July. They met several times and ended up going through mediation. During the process, educational support staff members regularly attended school board meetings and occasionally spoke to the school board about their work.
During the April 28 meeting, Willert expressed appreciation for the work done by all parties to reach agreements on the new contracts.
“It was a lot of work on everybody’s part, so I’m happy to report that we were able to arrive at an amicable solution for everybody,” he said. “I know that it got to be a little longer process than what any of us, I think, really had anticipated, but at the end we ended up getting a positive result.”