Northside Trustees approve 5 percent raise for teachers and staff
NISD Communications Department
June 27, 2007
A starting teacher with a bachelors’ degree and no experience will make $43,500 during 2007-08 school year, thanks to a compensation package approved by the Northside Board of Trustees Tuesday night. A starting teacher with a master’s degree will make $44,550.
Trustees gave the go-ahead to give a 5 percent raise to all teachers, nurses, counselors, and librarians, on top of the $425 across-the-board salary increase funded by the state.
That means teachers will see a total salary increase of between 5.6 and 6.3 percent depending on their years of service. In dollars, that translates to a raise of between $2,500 and $3,766 more than 2006-07 school year.
In the past four years, Northside teacher salaries have increased by almost 25 percent.
“I’m glad that we’re in a healthy financial position to be able to do this for our teachers,” Board President Katie Reed said. “This will definitely help our efforts to recruit more than 800 teachers for the next school year.”
Superintendent John Folks said it was important for Northside to step up to the plate to give teachers a meaningful pay raise, considering the state provided only a $425 salary increase. It pales in comparison to the $2,000 increase the state approved last year.
“I’m astounded that state lawmakers chose not to compensate our teachers more adequately this year,” Folks said. “Even with the $2,000 increase last year, we still have a long way to go to make teacher salaries more commensurate with their responsibilities. Fortunately, we can at least offer more than a cost-of-living increase to our educators.”
The Board of Trustees also approved a 5 percent raise for administrators and professional, classified, and auxiliary staff.
Altogether, the pay raises will cost the District an additional $27.3 million, which includes $3.7 million to cover increasing health insurance costs.
The Board is scheduled to approve the tax rate and entire budget for 2007-08 school year at its Aug. 28 meeting.
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