Support local journalism. Unlock unlimited digital access to floridatoday.com. Click here and subscribe today.

At a Tuesday Brevard County School Board meeting, Brevard Public Schools superintendent outlined several ways the district is attempting to recruit and retain staff members, including an early adoption of the $15 minimum wage.

Starting July 1, all BPS employees will make at least $15 per hour.

Mullins said state law requires the district to increase minimum wage starting Oct. 1, but BPS has made the decision to begin the pay increase early.

In a presentation to the school board, Mullins said that BPS, like many districts around the country, is struggling to recruit and retain employees.

“You cannot pick up an educational professional journal without articles, if not the cover story, about these issues related to recruitment and retention of not just teachers anymore, but of all workforce,” Mullins said.

The district hopes that raising pay early will attract additional workers. Mullins said the district is also paying for social media advertisements, asking faith-based organizations to distribute information about jobs, participating in recruitment events at historically black colleges to attract diverse applicants and encouraging parents to consider working in their children’s schools.

It could take months to manually re-code all employees in the system with the new pay, Mullins said, but the district will apply the pay increases retroactively so that all...

Read Full Story: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/education/2022/06/29/brevard-public-s...