The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education voted Tuesday to recommend a proposed teacher pay increase to $38,000.
The raise was part of a list of priorities that the State Board of Education Legislative Committee laid out for the Missouri General Assembly to take up during the next session.
That list includes the following:
- Raising the minimum teacher pay to $38,000,
- A plan to create voluntary, high-quality, early learning opportunities for all Missouri children,
- A plan to expand on 2021 grants that fund local education programs.
The board also suggested that DESE work with stakeholders to "examine best practices for voluntary open enrollment to allow students to enroll at schools of their choosing."
A full list of all of the proposals and recommendations can be found here.
According to the DESE website, the minimum teacher’s salary is $25,000 and the minimum salary for a full-time teacher with a master’s degree with at least 10 years public teaching experience is $33,000.
The teacher baseline grant that was announced back in June used surplus money to raise minimum salaries for approved districts to $38,000 for the 2023 fiscal year.
A measure passed by legislature could permanently raise the floor to $38,000.
Rep. Ed Lewis (R-Moberly) prefiled a bill that would raise teacher salaries to $34,000 at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year and to $38,000 by the 2026-2027 school year.
