MARLBORO – Superintendent of Schools Eric Hibbs has received more than $14,000 in merit pay bonuses after achieving several merit goals during the 2017-18 school year.
According to Hibbs’ contract with the Marlboro K-8 School District Board of Education, “The superintendent is eligible to receive a merit bonus of up to 11.98 percent in addition to his annual base salary. The merit bonus will be based upon his achievement of quantitative merit criteria and/or qualitative merit criteria. The board and superintendent shall select three quantitative merit criteria and two qualitative merit criteria per contract year.
“The superintendent shall receive a merit bonus in the amount of 2.66 percent of his annual base salary for each quantitative merit criterion achieved, and/or a merit bonus in the amount of 2 percent of annual base salary for each qualitative merit criterion achieved,” the contract states.
Hibbs’ base salary for the 2017-18 school year was $191,584.
According to an agenda from a recent board meeting, Hibbs achieved one qualitative goal and two quantitative goals during the school year.
The qualitative goal stated that Hibbs “will create a mindfulness and well-being program for students with the goal of helping students gain valuable lifelong self-help skills that directly contribute to student success.”
Business Administrator Cindy Barr-Rague said Hibbs achieved the goal by creating a district leadership team comprised of vice principals, school counselors and the human resources director. The goal of the leadership team is to focus on students’ safety, and social and emotional well-being.
The first quantitative goal Hibbs achieved stated he would “create a goal focusing on student online and phone safety. This would involve night presentations with parents where he presents best practices for online/phone safety.”
“I have found that a lot of parents are simply not aware of how these controls work and that children have wide open internet settings. Sessions that focus on best practices online and phone safety could really help parents,” Hibbs said.
The second quantitative goal Hibbs achieved was to implement the concepts for the Marlboro Marketplace, a program that would help students understand the concept of “financial literacy.”
As part of the goal’s description, Hibbs said, “I would like to create the Marlboro Marketplace where each building would first hold discussions involving financial literacy, and then students would engage in the process of making a product. These ‘products’ would then be sold at the marketplace held at each individual school. Students could explore their creative side in making a product to sell while developing their understanding of financial literacy.”
A requirement of completing the goal was to hold a marketplace at each of the district’s five elementary schools.