Indiana teachers may be getting a pay raise in the coming years. During the Northwest Indiana Forum’s legislative wrap-up last week, Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch highlighted the $1.9 billion earmarked for K-12 education in the new state budget.
“A historic amount of money, and they said 45 percent of that, they wanted to be spent on teachers’ compensation, with starting salaries to be guaranteed at $40,000,” Crouch said. “That is what the Teachers’ Compensation Commission recommended after two years of study, and the General Assembly was able to do that.”
That’s welcome news for North Judson-San Pierre School Superintendent Dr. Annette Zupin. “There may be challenges, dependent on our current budget situation, and we are working on that right now,” Zupin acknowledged during Tuesday’s school board meeting. “We had a discussion meeting the other day indicating how we would like to be able to raise that beginner teacher pay to $40,000 in the first year, if we can. They indicated that you would have two years to do that. We would like to do that as soon as possible.”
Still, some feel that there’s more work to do. State Senator Eddie Melton said during last week’s event that it was “phenomenal” what lawmakers were able to accomplish, but they still haven’t solved the “complexity index” in a way that’s sustainable. He said superintendents want a funding formula that equitable for urban, suburban, and rural districts.
