With Gov. Tate Reeves’ signature on House Bill 530, Mississippi has gone from one of the lowest teacher pay rates in the country to now having an entry level pay higher than the national average ($41,163).
When the new school year begins on July 1, school teachers across the state will see their pay increase by an average of $5,140 annually. The new starting pay for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and no experience will bump from $37,000 to $41,500, an increase of $4,500.
Annual step increases will start at a minimum of $400, and every five years there will be at least a $1,000 milestone increase. Assistant teachers will also benefit from the new law, and their pay will increase by $2,000.
Isabel McLemore is a first grade teacher at Sudduth Elementary in the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District and has been in the profession for 15 years. McLemore is excited for what the increase means for Mississippi’s future but also for her coworkers now because teacher’s assistants will also see a pay raise.
“I’m grateful for this because it’s hard to support a family on a teacher’s salary,” McLemore said. “You don’t go into teaching for the money; you go in to help children. Many of us have side jobs just to support our family. I’m not only excited for myself but mostly for the other people I work with, especially the teachers’ assistants. They work so hard to help us, and they deserve to be recognized.”
Reeves signed the Strategically Accelerating the Recruitment and Retention of Teachers Act on Wednesday despite tornado warnings in the state capital, and when the START Act made it to the governor’s desk, there were only five people in the entire Mississippi Legislature who opposed the bill. All of the Golden Triangle’s senators and representatives voted in favor of the bill.
Funding for the raise will come from the state, according to Rep. Rob Roberson (R, Starkville). The state funding will not affect local supplements from individual districts.
“The district did raise the local teacher supplement last year to $2,250 to $3,250 depending on years of experience,” SOCSD public information officer Nicole Thomas said. “However the state pay raise doesn’t impact the local teacher supplement.”
Columbus Municipal School District public information officer Mary Pollitz reports that currently local funding will remain as well. Teachers within the district will keep their local $1,500 supplement.
Marilyn Chandler, a 16-year teaching veteran working at Sale Elementary is thankful for the strides the state is taking in helping teachers, but she wants to see that progress continue past the START Act.
“I hope that Mississippi continues its efforts in making decisions that show that we are supported and appreciated,” Chandler said. “We need good teachers; our students need us, and we as teachers need to be able to put our focus on doing our best for them, and not getting to a second job to make ends meet because of low teacher pay.”
Kindergarten teacher Jessica Glass from SOCSD’s Sudduth Elementary also wants to continue to see progress in the state legislature to help further education. Glass said when teachers are supported, the students can truly thrive.
“We hope our state leaders continue to show support and acknowledge our importance and impact that we make on our future scholars,” Glass said. “Thank you for noticing our hard work and this raise is an investment in our future and a raise to a better Mississippi.”
The hope for most teachers moving forward is to draw in new teachers to the state and to retain teachers who are passionate and serious about teaching.
“In comparison to other states across the nation, Mississippi teachers’ pay scale has always ranked at the bottom,” said Stokes Beard Elementary pre-k teacher Melodie Cunningham said. “This defines a new day for educators in Mississippi. Now we are on the right path of keeping teachers in this great state. Our students deserve highly qualified teachers, therefore highly qualified teachers are entitled to be paid on this new pay spectrum.”
The START Act not only focuses on raising teacher pay but it also removes the cap on the number of board-certified nurses, speech-language pathologists and audiologists in a school district that can receive the salary supplement for national board certification. While school contracts were already sent out due to state law, local schools are adjusting to the new law and will send out the new pay to teachers in the coming weeks.
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