Though the Wayland Board of Education Monday night ratified an extension of the teachers’ contract for one more year, problems persist with another group of employees, classroom aides.

The board agreed to an extension of employment, contracts with the district’s more than 160 teachers with a 1% increase in pay and full step increase for the 2017-18 academic year. The board and Wayland Education Association last came to terms on a two-year agreement until August 2017, but the extension takes it for one more year.

Teachers also will be able to continue the 80-20 percent ratio for health insurance premium contributions.

Superintendent Norm Taylor said, “Wayland is the only school district in Allegan County that still operates with the 80-20 instead of the hard cap.”

But as good as the insurance appears to be for Wayland teachers, three aides at Dorr Elementary presented complaints about the situation for their colleagues.

Some aides have been offered insurance in which they must pay 100% of the cost, essentially forcing them to work for a pittance plus the insurance. The school district is trying to cope with the rules of the Afforable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in which employees who work at least 30 hours a week must be offered health insurance.

Leslie Gonzales, an aide in the Dorr school library, told the board, “We have a couple of aides who are in dire need of your help… A couple of them may have to lose their jobs.”

She added. “We’d like to see the board take the insurance off the board for them so they can get their husband’s insurance.”

Some employers will not offer health care benefits to employees’ spouses who have been offered insurance where they work.

Kathy Rybiski, an office aide at Dorr, said she pays $5,589 for health insurance premiums, which is more than half her annual salary.

“I love my job and I love my kids,” she said. “But I need money. I don’t want to just work for the insurance.”

Phyllis VanderMeer added, “I’m also walking out the door if this insurance (situation) continues… I’m lucky, I’m retiring.

“Now some of us who make eleven or twelve thousand dollars ayear pay as much as $9,000 (a year for insurance). We may have to have spaghetti dinners (for needy aides). How would that look? Shame on you.”

Taylor later in the meeting said the school district has to comply with provisions of the Affordable Care Act, so, “The board didn’t have anything to do with that.”