Committee moves teacher assistants into 40‑hour pay grouping; policy cleanup to follow

The Cumberland County Schools committee on April 30 approved moving teacher assistants (TAs) from a 7.5‑hour/37.5‑hour pay basis into the district’s 8‑hour/40‑hour grouping for classified employees.

Jay, the district finance presenter, said the existing practice pays TAs for 37.5 hours day‑to‑day (if they do not drive a bus) and provides comp time for hours that take them above that threshold; bus drivers are paid for the bus time separately. “Currently teacher assistants are paid for 37 and a half hours a day... if they work over 40 hours, then they'd get time and a half,” Jay told the committee while explaining the proposed change to pay straight to 40 hours for non‑bus‑driving TAs.

Board members asked how the change affects the budget. A member asked whether the move increases district costs; Jay replied the change is effectively zero‑sum because principals can still schedule sites for 7.5 hours and comp‑time usage and scheduling practices would continue to manage outlays. “The principal can still schedule the employee for seven and a half hours and... it's still a cash outlay for the district and it really only affects the teacher assistants that don't drive a bus,” Jay said.

The committee recorded the motion to consider the change and voted unanimously to forward the revised language to the policy committee for cleanup and formal adoption.

Why it matters: The change standardizes pay treatment for TAs across classified staff and simplifies payroll categories; staff framed the revision as correcting an artifact of past statewide reductions in TA funding that left inconsistent district practice.

Next steps: Policy staff will prepare a cleaned‑up version of the policy for the policy committee to consider, and the district indicated it will return with a finalized policy draft.