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Teacher pay plan on tap for Pinellas School Board

The Classroom Teachers Association has not yet agreed to the proposal.
 
The Pinellas County School Board holds a socially distanced meeting on Aug. 25, 2020.
The Pinellas County School Board holds a socially distanced meeting on Aug. 25, 2020. [ Pinellas County Schools ]
Published Sept. 21, 2020|Updated Sept. 21, 2020

Florida lawmakers set aside $500 million this year to increase base teacher wages, with the goal to get districts as close to $47,500 as possible.

The Pinellas County school district doesn’t have far to go. With its entry level salary at $45,507, officials said, the district would need to spend about $3.2 million to have every one of its educators paid at least that much.

The district’s share of the state allocation is $17 million, of which $1.15 million would go to charter schools. That leaves several millions of dollars available to support other pay increases beyond the base.

A big complaint about the state plan has been its focus on entry level salaries for K-12 classroom teachers. It left out veteran educators and those without assigned classes, such as guidance counselors, media specialists and prekindergarten teachers.

Related: Florida’s $500 million teacher raise plan gets mixed reviews

Under the district’s proposal, which goes to the School Board on Tuesday in advance of an Oct. 1 state submission deadline, 1,880 teachers would see their pay rise to the new base.

Another 4,764 make at least that much now, according to the district. Top Pinellas administrators have proposed that the board use the $12.7 million that’s not needed to lift the base salary to give everyone else — including instructional personnel who are not assigned a specific classroom — a raise of 3.3 percent.

They asked the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association to accept their proposal a week ago. The union’s bargaining team said it wanted to review budgets, account balances and other financial information before making any decision.

Board member Nicole Carr said she expected the district to meet the state’s guidelines and also work collaboratively with the teachers association to reach an agreement.

“We don’t want to be heavy-handed," Carr said. “I don’t really see it as a contentious thing yet, because we still have time.”

The state has set a second deadline of Dec. 1 for districts to update their plans.

Other districts also are reviewing how they will comply with the state rules for distributing the teacher salary allocation.

Related: DeSantis signs teacher pay raises into Florida law with bipartisan support