The Sip: A new bill signed into law to increase the salary of first year teachers and those with a Master’s Degree and 10 Years Experience does nothing for our region. The schools in our area all already pay above these “new” minimums.
The Full Cup: A new law will take effect next school year (2025-2026) which will increase new teacher’s salaries to a minimum of $40,000/year. It increases the salary of teachers with a Masters degree and 10 years experience to a minimum of $48,000/year.
A check of the salary schedule in the Rockwood School District shows that first year teachers are paid for the 2024-2025 school year already 11% higher than this minimum. The salary for first year teachers in 2025-2026 has not been announced, but it is presumed it will be higher still given past increases. The salaries of first year teachers were also checked in: Parkway, Valley Park, Meramec Valley (Pacific), Washington & Kirkwood. To be sure not to cherry-pick better-funded school districts, Riverview Gardens and Normandy were also included. There are seemingly no school districts in our region that are paying below this new minimum now. As such, this new law does nothing for our teachers.
The salaries for a teacher with a Master’s degree and 10 years experience is a bit more complicated to calculate. School districts generally reward teachers who have all 10 years of their experience in their district higher than those who transfer in with some or all of their experience somewhere else. Regardless, the story is the same – the new ‘minimum’ is already well below the going rate for teacher salaries.
There do seem to be districts in much more rural parts of Southwest Missouri that will be impacted by this new law – but those seem to be very few. Is this law yet another PR stunt from Jeff City?
Photo Credit: Mobile Wallpaper Stock photos by Vecteezy
