Participants say a state program to reward high-performing teachers with merit pay is a success as it nears its second round of awards.

However, the Rapid City school district is standing by its decision not to participate.

But at Martin Elementary School in Bennett County, Principal Belinda Ready said: "It's been a good thing. It's not just the money, but the camaraderie we have in trying to make our students proficient."

Martin is one of 10 school districts that have taken part in the state's federally-funded INCENTIVESplus program. The Rapid City district, as well as many of the large districts in the state, declined to participate.

The $20 million federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant pays for a performance-based compensation system for teachers and principals, offering professional development activities as well as monetary awards. Teachers can qualify for as much as $2,250 in additional pay annually. Principals can receive an extra $4,000, and paraprofessionals, $1,100, according to Melody Schopp with the state Department of Education. By the end of December, nearly 800 educators from 27 schools will have received more than $1 million total.

The program targets schools in which 40 percent or more of the students come from low-income families.

The first round of awards focused on professional development activities. The second round of awards will be based on student achievement, particularly student performance scores on schoolwide assessments.

Rapid City Superintendent Peter Wharton said he chose not to participate in the state's merit-pay program because of the financial commitment the district would have to make.

Beginning with a 10 percent commitment in the third year of the grant, the district is required to pay for an increasing percentage of the program's cost. By the fifth year, the district's share would be 30 percent.

In Rapid City, the money would come from the district's diminishing general fund or from the other sources, including Title I monies or the state Teacher Compensation Assistance Program.

INCENTIVESplus is restricted to high-needs schools based on average income of students' families. Rapid City's qualifying schools include General Beadle, Horace Mann, Knollwood and Robbinsdale elementary schools and North Middle School.

"We'd be rewarding some staff and not others," Wharton said.

Eric Abrahamson, a former school board member, said the money would not help the district's current financial woes.

"We have had ongoing issues about our growing dependency on grants," he said. "Grants don't provide money for the fundamental programs we're doing."

Merit pay would be another Band-Aid for funding problems, he said.

"When the money runs out, your only choice is to eat into your existing base of money to feed the programs or terminate them," he said. "They're not the solution to our funding problem; they make people's lives more difficult."

Last year, several staff members were shuffled around the district to different positions after the grants that funded their positions ran out, he said.

"That was part of the heartache."

But Schopp contends that the program has positive long-term effects for a district. Some of the participating schools have used the funds to recruit and retain teachers, she said, and those schools have been able to build leadership and create teamwork, which has increased student achievement.

Ready said the funds have allowed her staff the time and resources to focus on individual students and their emotional, social and physical needs.

That nurtures considering "what can we do to help the student achieve?" she said.

Abrahamson said smaller districts don't have the same challenges as Rapid City does, where not every school qualifies for the program.

"You don't have the issue we have of pitting one group against another," he said.

Rapid City consulting firm Technology and Innovation in Education administers INCENTIVESplus for the state. Joe Hauge, deputy director of the firm, said the strongest point of the program is that it gets teachers involved.

"Teachers are very much in the lead of the whole process," he said.

Officials with Rapid City Education Association declined to discuss their opinion of the program. Teacher unions throughout the state historically have opposed merit-pay programs, and some Rapid City teachers have expressed worries that the program would erode their sense of building teamwork, Abrahamson said.

Principal Ready said it has done the opposite in her school.

"Teachers are taking ownership of it," she said.

On the Net

South Dakota INCENTIVESplus: doe.sd.gov/oatq/incentives_plus/index.asp

Teacher Incentive Fund: ed.gov/programs/teacherincentive/index.html

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com.