SYRACUSE — Pending ratification by the Wawasee Community Educators Association, the Wawasee school board approved a contract agreement with teachers and administrators during a special board meeting Thursday evening, Sept. 22, in Syracuse.

The agreement, effective July 1 through June 30, 2017, would give teachers rated effective or highly effective a 1 percent base salary raise and a 2 percent increase in increments. Dr. Tom Edington, Wawasee Community School Corp. superintendent, said according to Indiana Code 67 percent of the increment is based on teacher evaluations and the other 33 percent is based on academic needs.

Classified staff and administrators would receive a 3 percent increase on their base wage.

Edington noted the state has become more involved in teacher negotiations and has added many new laws pertaining to negotiations and the agreement coming from negotiations. There is only a two month window to complete the process and that will expire at the end of September.

In other business, the board approved the Wawasee High School FFA horticulture judging team to attend the national horticulture judging contest Oct. 7-11 in Erie, Pa. Students Gynnae Hochstetler, Leeann Estrada and Kayla Estrada qualified for the national contest by earning high enough scores at a state contest Saturday, Sept. 17.

And the board approved entering a data sharing agreement to allow Purdue University to examine science readiness tests and end of course assessments to see if they can be improved.