Greenfield-Central Superintendent Harold Olin noted that his teachers will see an increase in pay.
HANCOCK COUNTY — A look at teacher contracts for the 2023-24 school year show educators will get a pay increase while base salaries for new teachers also inch upward. Raises for each teacher could also vary depending on how an educator is rated through evaluations, which have a compensation component based on performance, years of education and service. Evaluation ratings of effective or highly effective are required to receive a salary increase.
Teachers within the Greenfield-Central schools are set to see a significant bump in pay this year, with an average increase of $5,300, district officials said.
The G-C school board gave their final approval at a special board meeting Friday, Oct. 27.
The new contract will award a $3,500 annual raise to all teachers returning from last year, and will also include additional raises to even out pay among equally qualified and equally experienced teachers.
“We targeted a number of teachers who needed adjustments due to pay compression,” Superintendent Harold Olin said.
He was referring to what occurs when less experienced staff members earn as much as or more than longer-term employees due to rising starting salaries.
“We were able to bring those more in alignment,” Olin said, adding 191 teachers are projected to get a raise beyond the $3,500 base increase.
“The average teacher raise is $5,300 this year, so this is by far the most aggressive bargaining agreement we’ve done in my 10 years,” Olin said. “We want to make sure Greenfield-Central teachers are being compensated fairly, and this moves the needle quite a bit. The average teacher salary will be over $64,000, which makes us very competitive not only in Hancock County but throughout central Indiana.”
The new salary agreement immediately went into effect once passed late last week, with teachers being paid retroactively back to the start of the current school year. Olin noted the pay bump should go a long way in recruiting and retaining talented teachers.
“Retention is our goal. We want to make sure people aren’t leaving us for compensation or wage-related reasons, and I think this (new contract) helps us out a lot,” he said.
Teachers in the Southern Hancock school district will also see an increase in pay following approval of the contract last week. The amount of the Education Fund dollars available for teacher salary raises under the compensation model for 2023-24 went up to $650,000 — an increase of $100,000 from last year. The base salary for a starting teacher with a bachelor of science degree also increased to $51,500 from $50,000 with a base teacher salary range, depending on education and years of service, anywhere from $51,500 to $85,600.
Kent Gish, who represented the Southern Hancock Teacher’s Association noted that beginning teachers (0 years experience) got a $1,500 raise while experienced teachers, not at the top of the scale, got about a $3,000 raise, with other experienced teachers getting a $1,500 raise.
“We also added about $60,000 to our extra curricular activity positions to make them align better with similar positions in the conference,” Gish said. “The New Palestine Classroom Teachers’ Association and the administration worked together to keep SH a great place to teach.”
Officials with the Mt. Vernon school district settled their teacher contract status in September with pay increases added.
Officials there noted the salary pay range was anywhere from $45,305 to as much as $87,125 before any increases negotiated under this year’s contract. The new salary range for 2023-24 is set at $47,345 to $87,125, showing a slight increase for starting teachers. Under this contract, it means no teacher salary shall be below or above this range.
The contract also notes a signing bonus of $2,000 with the first $1,000 being paid on their first check and the rest paid in June, the contract states.
Superintendent for Eastern Hancock schools George Philhower noted every teacher is getting at least a $3,370 raise with the starting teacher salary going up to $45,000.
“We adjusted everyone’s salary including those at the bottom of the scale, so if we raised the starting salary by say $5,000 then we’d have to give others raises to get them to the right level,” Philhower said. “It means there were lots of people at the bottom of the scale who received more than the $3,370 increase.”
Philhower noted the teachers association they work with is wonderful and he only wished there was more in the budget to give educators an even higher increase.
“We approached this whole process as a team,” Philhower said. “Obviously this administration and our school board would love to be able to give everyone a whole bunch more but we gave them every penny that we could.”
Philhower noted the lowest increase for each teacher would be slightly over 4%, which he said doesn’t even cover a true cost of living increase.
