SOUTH WHITLEY — Whitko Community School Corporation held a special meeting of the Board of Education, Thursday, Nov. 14, to approve the Teachers’ Master Contract prior to the state deadline of Nov. 15, 2019.

The board voted to approve the contract, which is a two-year contract, effective retroactively to the start of the school year and will continue until June 30, 2021. The contract takes advantage of the flexibility granted by the Indiana General Assembly to increase salaries of certain teachers based on criteria approved at the state level, said a news release from Whitko Community School Corporation, the district said in a news release issued late this afternoon.

The school corporation will increase the starting salaries of beginning teachers to $39,000 for the current school year and $40,000 for the 2020-21 school year. Other teachers will receive as much as a 5% increase to their base salary, with the total expenditures on teachers’ salaries increasing by approximately 4.73%. All eligible teachers will receive a 2% base salary increase in the 2020-21 school year.

“We are pleased to work collaboratively with the Whitko Classroom Teachers Association (WCTA) to agree on this 2019-21 master contract. Based on the current state law allowing for flexibility, we were able to increase salaries of beginning teachers to veteran teachers substantially, while still increasing the base of all eligible teachers, said Whitko Superintendent Dr. Brandon Penrod.

“Thank you to the Whitko Community School Corporation School Board and the Whitko Classroom Teachers Association for their hard work on this contract. This honors the hard work our teachers have been doing and helps us attract and retain top-notch talent,” Penrod said.