The Pleasant Valley School Board approved a five-year contract for its assistant superintendent during its meeting Thursday night.

The new contract goes into effect on July 1, 2026, and runs through to June 30, 2031. Her current contract was set to expire in September 2026.

In August, the school board approved a 4% raise for Superintendent James Konrad, but a raise for Assistant Superintendent Rae Lin Howard, who leads the Office of Curriculum and Instruction, was not on the agenda. One year prior, raises for both employees were approved at the same meeting.

Mark Fitzgerald, the solicitor for the school district, explained this summer that the reason for this “is due to the fact that the contracts are different.”

Fitzgerald said that Howard’s contract states that as long as she meets “certain performance standards,” then “her increase is guaranteed within the contract.”

“Therefore, the board does not need to take any further action on it. It has already been approved effectively through that contract that was approved in September of 2021,” he said.

It wasn’t clear if she had met those performance standards or whether or not she was receiving a 4% raise. If she did, then it would have placed her salary at $168,002.

Howard’s new contract will give her a salary of $174,723 for the 2026-2027 school year, with a 3.5% raise each year as long as her “performance is determined to be satisfactory consistent with Dr. Howard’s end-of-year evaluations.”

Director Melanie Zipp addressed some talk on social media about Howard’s contract being renewed too soon. She said that it is not uncommon for them to renegotiate contracts within the three-to-five-year time frame.

“There was a lot of public angst about not having contracts in place by the time they expired last time they were negotiated, so I don’t really see what the problem is there,” Zipp said.

On June 30, 2021, the contract with the Pleasant Valley Education Association (the teachers’ union) had expired before a new contract was in place.

Zipp went on to say that the salary and wage increases for all contracts are in place to keep the school district competitive with other school districts in order to attract and retain the employees.

“The business office works diligently to prevent passing the entire cost of that onto the taxpayer. Salaries is our largest line item, as is typical with any district,” Zipp said. “This contract itself is actually a decrease of annual salary from what the current contract is for Dr. Howard. Her current contract is 4%. The contract on for tonight is 3.5 (percent).”

Zipp also addressed the criticism of why goals were not set saying, “You don’t set goals now for a contract that is going to last for multiple years because you want those goals to adjust and change as the needs of the district change, so that’s just silliness feedback.”

Director John Gesiskie addressed social media comments suggesting that the contract was being passed now before the election in November while the current school board is in place. He said he doesn’t think the number of new members to the board will be more than one or two, so voting on the contract after the election would not have affected approving it.

Several directors including Diane Serfass, President Sue Kresge, Gesiskie and Zipp said they think Howard has been doing a good job.

“Her past performance and the evaluations prove that she’s been a valuable asset to this team,” Kresge said.