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Teachers could earn up to $16,500 more in their first year under new bill
While educators are enthusiastic about increasing teacher pay, many worry about controversial changes to Iowa’s area education agencies under same bill
Jan. 18, 2024 5:00 am, Updated: Jan. 18, 2024 7:19 am
Iowa schools could offer beginning teachers a salary increase of up to $16,500 under a bill proposed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in a program estimated to cost $96 million in its first year.
The burgeoning salary could make a difference in attracting people to the profession as a nationwide teacher shortage continues to impact school districts across Iowa.
“Anything we can do to distinguish ourselves and give ourselves a competitive edge is a game changer. It gives us the ability to be more competitive nationally,” said Darius Ballard, chief human resource officer for the Cedar Rapids Community School District.
The proposal, filed last week as House Study Bill 542, would set the salary for first-year teachers at $50,000 a year, and set a $62,000 annual salary for teachers with 12 or more years of experience.
Currently, the minimum teacher pay in Iowa is $33,500, set by lawmakers more than a decade ago.
The average salary for teachers in the Cedar Rapids Community School District — the second largest district in the state — is about $66,800. First year teachers in the district make an average of $47,410, Ballard said.
Teachers with 12 years of experience and a bachelor’s degree earn about $54,160, according to the Cedar Rapids school district’s salary schedule. This does not include educators who have continuing education credits or advanced degrees.
The bill also proposes controversial changes to Iowa’s area education agencies that provide expertise to educators and families. It would prohibit AEAs from offering services beyond special education for students — and school districts could drop their current agency and look elsewhere for the services.
On the chopping block under the governor’s proposal would be media and technology, and educational services including math, science and literacy, expertise offered to school districts by the nine AEAs across the state.
Melissa Peterson, a lobbyist for the Iowa State Education Association, said it’s a “distraction” to add teacher pay to a bill that “created so much immediate controversy.”
“We’re encouraging legislators to split these issues,” Peterson said. “We would like to see the AEA conversation separated from the compensation question. Both are very important and very complicated.”
The bill also does not address pay for education support professionals such as paraprofessionals, bus drivers and food service workers, educators said.
Mount Vernon schools Superintendent Greg Batenhorst said if the bill passes as is, changes made to area education agencies would be “crushing.”
“While you may potentially give teachers more money, are you taking away things that are going to impact the climate and culture of the classroom so significantly that the increased pay is not truly worth it?” Batenhorst said.
Batenhorst said he does support increasing teacher pay “wholeheartedly,” but questions how sustainable the proposal is financially.
It also could put pressure on districts to rebuild their salary schedules, a series of steps and ranges that determine pay rates over time.
For example, first-year teachers could earn the same salary as teachers with 11 years of experience if the bill were to pass.
Leisa Breitfelder, superintendent of two rural school districts — North Linn and Central City — said the proposal would increase the salary of first-year teachers in her districts by $12,000.
“Is it needed? Absolutely,“ Breitfelder said.
However, as the leader of school districts with a combined student body of about 1,000, she’s concerned about the loss of area education services if the bill were to pass as is.
Grant Wood AEA — the agency that serves seven counties in Eastern Iowa — provides North Linn and Central City with curriculum consultants, technology expertise, science curriculum and professional development.
People are being steered away from careers as teachers in Iowa because of the negative “spotlight” on the career — not because of the salary, Breitfelder said.
To fund the salary increases, the bill proposes the Iowa Department of Management create up to 10 tiers to group school districts based on enrollment, said Margaret Buckton, a lobbyist for the Urban Education Network and Rural School Advocates of Iowa.
The Department of Management would then determine how much money it would take to reach the minimum salary requirements for each tier, and the money would be distributed by the Teacher Salary Supplement, a per pupil funding stream that can help school districts comply with teacher salary minimums.
The cost also includes Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System and the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, the U.S. federal payroll tax, Buckton said.
“The math works. It’s predictable,” Buckton said.
Peterson said educators and school finance leaders across the state are still not quite sure how funding salary increases would work in practice.
“We love the idea of making ourselves more competitive, so we stop losing education professionals who graduate (from the University of Northern Iowa) and go work in Minnesota,” Peterson said. “We wish the governor would have had more education experts in the conversation to figure out if there wasn’t a clearer way to do this.”
Solon schools Superintendent Davis Eidahl said the district’s first-year teachers currently make $40,000. About 32 percent of the teaching staff makes less than $50,000, he said.
Eidahl said the district would need a “tremendous amount of state support financially” to meet the minimum teacher pay requirements if the bill were to pass. He estimates it would cost an additional $225,000 this year.
Since 2020, the Solon school district has increased teacher salaries by almost 17 percent, Eidahl said. “We do our best to stay competitive and help employees with inflation and the cost of living,” he said.
Eidahl said Solon can’t compete with the salaries neighboring school districts Cedar Rapids and Iowa City offer teachers. They attract employees to Solon with small class sizes, infrastructure and professional development opportunities, he said.
If the state were to increase teacher salaries, Eidahl said he would like to extend teachers’ contracts as well to include more days for professional learning.
“We value every minute we get with our teachers. We would never want our family doctor to graduate from medical school and 20 years later never advance. I look at education the same way. Every year, we’re applying new research. An extra 10 to 15 days with (teachers) would be really helpful,” Eidahl said.
Teaching is not a “9-5” job, Eidahl said. “Evenings are spent with lesson plans. There’s always the need to continue your own education to learn and grow. There’s a lot of demands to being an educator. On top of that, you’re constantly struggling with finances,” he said.
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
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