School Board Approves Nearly $30,000 In Superintendent’s Merit Pay

Schools Superintendent John Ravally earned nearly $30,000 in merit bonuses over the last school year. (File photo).

Nearly $30,000 in merit bonuses for the schools Superintendent were approved July 18 by the Board of Education.

The bonuses were the result of schools Superintendent John Ravally meeting all of the performance goals set for him last year by the board.

In total, Ravally earned $29,467.95 in the bonuses.

Ravally is in the second year of a five-year contract which carries a base salary of $191,000, up to $196,584 when stipends are included. The salary stays the same in the contract’s third year, with 2 percent raises in each of years four and five.

There were three quantitative goals that Ravally had to meet during the past school year, bonuses for which were calculated on a tiered basis, depending upon the level to which they were met. Two of them were based on the level of achievement when measured against the results of “iReady” tests at the beginning and end of the school year. The third goal was dependent upon reductions in Kindergarten disciplinary incidents.

Ravally also had to meet two qualitative goals, the bonuses for each also on a tiered basis. The first dealt with social media usage by district principals and staff, and the second involved staffing and creating schedules for the new Claremont Road School, as well as schedules for the two middle school campuses.

Ravally earned a 3.33 percent bonus – $6,546.25 – for meeting the goal of having at least 55 percent of students in Kindergarten through Grade 2 demonstrate one year’s growth in the iReady English language arts program. Ravally exceeded that goal with 56.3 percent of the students showing that level of growth.

He earned another $6,546.25 bonus for meeting the goal of having at least 55 percent of K-2 students show one year’s growth in their iReady math score. This goal, too, was exceeded, with 56.4 percent of the students showing the necessary improvement.

Another $6,546.25 bonus was earned because the number of Kindergartners involved in disciplinary incidents declined by 10 percent from the previous year. That goal was shattered, with a 40 percent reduction being recorded.

For the qualitative goals, Ravally earned $4,914.60 for meeting the goal of developing a social media policy and having school principals “tweet” an average of two to four messages a month between October 2017 and May 2018, and have school staff “tweet” weekly messages from February through May 2018.

The principals ended up publishing an average of nearly 15 “tweets” per month, while faculty published an average of nearly seven “tweets” per month.

Finally, Ravally earned another $4,914.60 bonus for setting up staffing for the Claremont Road School – set to open in September – and helping create new master schedules for the district’s elementary and middle schools.

“He met all of his goals,” said school board president Nancy LaCorte. “The district has worked hard as a team to accomplish so much in the past year.”

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