FAYETTEVILLE -- The lowest-paid teacher in the Fayetteville School District will earn as much or more as most teachers in Arkansas when the district's latest approved increase takes effect July 1, state figures show.
Median teachers' pay in Arkansas public schools was $49,822 when Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation in early 2021 specifically to address the gap in teacher pay between the state's school districts. Act 679 of 2021 and other legislation addressing teacher pay is expected to raise that median pay to $51,822 by 2023. The Fayetteville School Board unanimously approved a $50,000 starting salary for teachers Thursday.
"Act 679 will help, but it will take a couple of years, and it's not like the highest paying school districts are going to be sitting on their hands," Mike Mertens, assistant executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, said of the Fayetteville increase. Closing gaps in teacher pay has been a goal of the state's school administrators for years.
Teacher pay is based on both a teacher's years of experience and level of education. A Fayetteville teacher with a master's degree and 30 years of experience, for example, would earn $77,161 under next year's salary schedule.
"In surveys of principals and superintendents, the Bureau of Legislative Research reported difficulty in offering competitive salaries as the most significant barrier to teacher recruitment and retention," according to the text of Act 679, which created a state teacher salary equalization fund of $25 million. The legislation allows districts with below-average teacher salaries to raise them by drawing from that pool of money. The amount a district can get is tied by formula to the district's average daily enrollment.
Most state taxpayer money for public education is distributed through a per-student funding formula. It is mathematically impossible for a small school district with, for instance, 12 students in a class to match the teacher salaries of a larger district with the state's maximum of 28 students to a class, said Sarah McKenzie, executive director of the Office for Education Policy and an assistant research professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. More students per class means more per-student state taxpayer dollars per teacher, she said.
Larger districts have other advantages such as higher visibility in the job market, McKenzie said.
"People who know about the Fayetteville School District may not know about Lincoln's," she said. There is no central location in the state where a teacher's application can go to every district, she said.
Average teacher pay by district ranged from as much as $60,963 in the Fayetteville School District to as little as $39,578 in the Lead Hill School District in Boone County, supporters of the bill that became Act 679 argued. The bill, Senate Bill 504 sponsored by Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, passed the Senate 33-0 and the House 86-0.
Fayetteville's increase in minimum teacher salary is a 5.4% boost from the district's previous minimum of $47,450. Fayetteville ranked third in the state in minimum teacher salary behind the Bentonville district at $47,799 and the Springdale district at $48,782. Both the Bentonville and Springdale districts have yet to decide their salary schedules for the next school year.
Fayetteville's decision makes it the first in the state to hit $50,000 a year in minimum teacher pay. Teachers and other certified employees will get 5% raises next year also, the board decided. Classified staff members -- such as bus drivers, mechanics and food service workers -- will receive a $1.50-per-hour increase.
"Like everybody in the world right now, we're struggling to fill some positions," Fayetteville board president Nika Waitsman said during Thursday's meeting.