For more than a decade, Horizon High School social studies teacher Susan Seep says she and her colleagues saw their net pay go down – a combined result of stagnant salaries, rising health insurance costs and larger retirement contributions.
But the plan that the Arizona legislature passed and Governor Doug Ducey signed earlier this year changed the equation.
“A ton of people are excited, getting a significant raise,” Seep said, whose Paradise Valley School District approved an average 12 percent raise for certified teachers. “A lot of us feel we can breathe a little easier.”
Seep jokes that for the first time, she will have a comma in the amount of take-home pay she gets.
“I have to explain, I get paid every two weeks, 26 times a year and my paycheck has no comma. That’s real,” Seep said.
12 News can verify that across the state, school districts are reporting sizeable raises for teachers.
Here are the teacher salary increases at several districts:
- Paradise Valley School District: 12 percent
- The Washington Elementary School District: 15 percent
- Tempe Union High School District: 10 to 19 percent
- Wickenburg Unified: 12 percent
- Pima Unified: 15 percent
- Fountain Hills: 13 percent
- Chino Valley Unified School District: 13 percent (returning teachers)
- Phoenix Union High School: 8 percent
A spokesperson for the Phoenix Union High School District told 12 News there was a reason the district did not produce a full 10 percent raise for all teachers.
“PUHSD received $210 per student, like all districts, with the new money, but because our teacher salary average was already over $60,000, much more than the $48,372 state average, the increase was less than 10 percent,” said Craig Pletenik in a statement to 12 News. “The teacher salary increase allocation was based on the average teacher salary in AZ, not the PUHSD average.”
He added that PUHSD also included all certified employees (such as librarians, counselors and social workers) and thus, new funding was spread thinner.
Seep and other school funding activists say the work isn’t done. The annual overall budget for schools is still more than $600 million below pre-recession levels. Teachers are still spending hundreds of dollars of their own money for supplies.
“We joke that we’re the only people in society that sneak office supplies into our jobs. Everyone else, right, takes them out the back door,” Seep said.
Arizona class sizes are higher than the national average and the state's counselor-to-student ratio has been one of the worst in the nation.
“I’m glad the conversation is finally open, especially among parents who had no idea how bad it was,” Seep said. “People finally are paying attention to what teachers have been saying for so long, which is it’s not about teacher pay. In the end it’s about being underfunded.”