Edinburg school board members approved a pay scale adjustment it says will better reward school nurses who have been an integral component of the district’s COVID-19 testing and vaccination initiatives.
The board voted Monday to move nurses from Pay Grade 2 of the school professional and administration salary schedule to a pay scale solely for nurses.
Superintendent Mario Salinas said the change will result in a significant increase in pay for most of the district’s nurses at a time when competition for employees is high.
“Many of the nurses got up to $4,000 raises, effective yesterday,” Salinas said Thursday.
According to Salinas, the move was triggered by reports of some ECISD nurses being recruited by hospitals and leaving the district.
“You know, in the summer, we made a push to pay our teachers, we prioritized paying our teachers among the highest salaries in South Texas, but we forgot about our nurses,” he said. “With the nurses being the frontline for us, with COVID and the vaccinations and testing and all of that.”
During Tuesday’s meeting Salinas told trustees the district asked a TASB pay consultant to study the pay rates of its nurses in an effort to retain them and recruit more of them.
We asked the consultant to study to see if we could get the nurses on a pay scale that identifies the nurses as a group by themselves rather than tied to other professionals,” he said.
That consultant’s advice was a salary scale specifically for nurses.
“The result of such a nursing scale: the nurses will get paid competitive salaries per the market as proposed,” Salinas said.
Trustees took the opportunity to compliment the district’s nurses. Some said it was high time they received a little more money.
“Those numbers do look good, especially with what we’re dealing with now,” Trustee Mike Farias said. “It’s a profession that I deal with — I was amazed at what they were getting paid and still here. And this is well deserved … I know the importance of the nurses because of my background, and when it came time to do the job, they didn’t just do the job; they went above and beyond.”
