SC Department of Education wants to give teachers, bus drivers raises. Here’s how much
State education leaders want to increase teachers’ pay by 2% next school year and find a way to give higher annual raises for teachers early in their teaching careers.
The request is part of the Department of Education’s 2022-23 budget request to lawmakers ahead of next year’s session.
When lawmakers return to Columbia in January, they will have about $3 billion in additional money to allocate when it puts together a budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
The proposed teacher raise would equate to between $800 to $1,700 more a year for teachers depending on where the teacher falls on the minimum salary schedule. That takes into account a teacher’s years of experience and education level. For the current school year, teachers received a $1,000 pay increase. The 2% pay hike would not include the annual step increase teachers receive for each year of experience.
Department of Education officials also requested additional pay for teachers who are within the first five years of the state’s minimum salary schedule by adjusting the schedule to ensure the teachers early in their career receive the full value of their step increase, education department spokesman Ryan Brown said.
When the state raised salaries for each teacher by a flat amount, teachers within the first five years of the schedule only saw an accompanying small percentage increase associated with their step, Brown said.
“At the end of the day we want teacher salaries to go up. In order to do that, the state needs to give more money to districts to pay salaries,” Brown said.
The pay increase request comes as teacher vacancies have increased 50% this school year to 1,060 open spots, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re very concerned about the quantity of people who are going into the teaching courses and we’re always doing anything we can think of to support teachers, increasing their compensation, giving them the support, the mental health support that they need, making it as easy as possible without lowering standards for people to go into the teaching area,” Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman said.
The budget request also includes enough money to give a 5% raise to school bus drivers. Finding bus drivers continues to be a challenge for school districts as the state is short 700 drivers, Brown said.
“Teacher salaries are an issue, but if you can’t get kids to school, it doesn’t really matter,” Brown said.
School districts find themselves competing with trucking companies that can pay more. The department wants to raise the minimum pay from $8.44 an hour to at least $8.86 an hour. School districts, however, pay may more than the minimum sometimes reaching $17 to $25 an hour, Brown said.
“The more the state pays into it, the more districts have the flexibility to raise the salaries on the local level,” Brown said.
Education leaders also want to put in $100 million for instructional materials in science, social studies and career and technology education textbooks. Standards in science and social studies were updated in 2019, so new textbooks aligned to those standards are needed.
The Department of Education also proposed $5.4 million to expand its Virtual SC program. Virtual education saw increased demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It also allows students access to courses, which may not be available in their schools.
The additional 20 positions for the Virtual SC program would be for high school and middle school courses. The department is looking to create elementary school courses as well.
“It’s a way for us to offer additional opportunities that may not exist in local school districts because they either don’t have enough children interested to warrant hiring a teacher or they can’t find a teacher,” Brown said.
Also included in the budget request is $75 million to help financially poor school districts build new schools to replace old buildings or improve buildings. Last year, the state allocated $100 million to help disadvantaged schools.
“It would be based on their need and their ability to pay,” Brown said.
This story was originally published December 20, 2021 at 2:36 PM with the headline "SC Department of Education wants to give teachers, bus drivers raises. Here’s how much."
