As voters flock to annual town and school district meetings this week, many were asked to approve new contracts for teachers and school support staff that include salary or benefit increases to make the jobs more desirable.

Locally, Merrimack Valley, Pembroke, Allenstown, Epsom, Deerfield and Shaker Regional school districts all proposed new teacher contracts to voters at annual meetings this month, while Weare, Kearsarge and Allenstown proposed paraprofessional contracts. Voters in Merrimack Valley, Allenstown, Pembroke, Weare and Shaker Regional approved their teacher contracts this month, but Epsom voters rejected theirs in the polls Tuesday.

Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association New Hampshire, said her organization is seeing widespread salary and benefit increases this year for education support professionals, a group that includes paraprofessionals, school bus drivers, food service workers and custodians. At a time when most New Hampshire school districts have been experiencing staffing shortages and hiring difficulties, Tuttle says the increases are a sign that New Hampshire school districts are trying to make the jobs more desirable to candidates.

“We’re getting some really big gains and some really big increases with our ESP folks and our hourly workers,” Tuttle said. “I think districts are starting to realize that you have to increase pay in order to make it more competitive for those ESP positions.”

In Weare School District, the paraeducator contract that passed Tuesday increases salaries by a little over a dollar an hour. For Para II positions – the certification level of most paraeducators in Weare – the pay ranges from $14.91 per hour in their first year to $21.73 by their 20th year in the district. With the new bargaining agreement, they would be paid higher on a shorter pay scale, ranging from $16 in year one to $22.50 in year 11. The salary increase is an attempt to attract more candidates, as Weare currently has nine paraeducator positions that need to be filled.

“There has to be something to motivate people to want to do this, especially when there’s no benefits are involved,” Weare School Board member Daniel Recupero told voters at their deliberative session in February.

The Kearsarge Regional School District’s proposed paraeducator contract, which will be on the ballot March 28, raises the salary across the board. For first-step paraeducators, that means an increase from $15.32 to $17.46. It also adds a bonus payout for paras who opt out of the health plan, and increases the District’s contributions to health insurance by 12%.

“We did struggle with recruiting all year long and last year,” said Superintendent Winfried Feneberg. “One of the objectives of the board was to adjust the salaries for paras significantly from the last three-year contract in order to be competitive. I think the Board and the Budget Committee were in agreement that a significant bump would be necessary to stay competitive with other businesses around.”

Merrimack Valley’s teacher contract carries a $493,613 cost increase for the district for the 2023-2024 school year while Pembroke’s is a $430,369 increase, Allenstown’s is a $95,943 increase. Shaker Regional’s is a $523,989 increase, while Deerfield’s proposes a $223,437 increase. Epsom’s, which was rejected, had proposed a $69,527 increase.

Weare’s paraeducator contract carries a $193,208 cost increase for the district and Allenstown’s will be a $65,442 increase. Kearsarge’s paraeducator contract proposes a $207,818 increase.

There are several bills in the state legislature that Tuttle said would go a long way toward making educator positions more desirable, including SB140 about paying a stipend to student teachers and HB623 about loan repayment for teachers. Tuttle also believes raising the state minimum wage would help.

“There’s a lot more that I think needs to be done in order to start getting more teachers back into New Hampshire and getting more back in the pipeline,” Tuttle said. “I think a lot of that is going to fall on the state to do that.”

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