Teaching assistant says pay change does more harm than good

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover County Schools need more bus drivers. To get them, the school board voted to get some teaching assistants to be drivers. As a result, they are moving from salary to hourly pay.

“I think we deserve to be treated correctly,” Sarah Jane said.

Jane is a teaching assistant at Eaton Elementary. She says months ago, the school board made TA’s hourly employees so they could also drive school buses.

“And none of us really understood what the change was going to be. But by the end of May we understood that it was going to change our worlds,” Jane said.

At a year round school, instead of making $1500 every month, Jane estimates she will bring home as little as $550 to just over $2000 a month.

“I can’t pay bills on a regular basis. I can’t get deductions paid. I can’t pay any car loans if I had one. And even worse, the credit union won’t loan me any money because I’m classified as irregular payments. I don’t have a regular paycheck,” Jane said.

She says if the pay system doesn’t change, she can’t afford to live here. School board chairman Edward Higgins admits the board did not foresee this affecting year round TA’s.

“Because of the way their year operates, it was having a negative impact on them,” Higgins said.

And he wants to make things right for them.

“We can then decide ‘alright are we going to let TA’s stay on salary or are we going to go hourly.’ Exactly what are we going to do so that nobody is unduly harmed,” Higgins said.

Higgins said they are potentially looking at putting the TA’s back on salary or even pushing this system back a whole year.

He said they are also looking at maybe making a whole new position, TA and bus driver, and paying a little more or having some other incentive.

The board will meet at 7:45 tomorrow morning.