COLOMBIA, SC (WIS) – A new effort to achieve an annual salary increase for teachers in South Carolina is on a Senate committee.
But the speed with which the bill went through the Statehouse is a great sign for teachers who were waiting for the return of the annual increase, also known as a gradual increase, to return.
Normally, state teachers receive a salary increase every year. But because of the pandemic, the increase of about 2% for 2020-2021 has been suspended.
But some of the teachers who have watched the project progress, like Sara Gams, South Carolina Teacher of the Year in 2021, say it is the first step for lawmakers to pay more attention to educational disparities.
“They honored their commitment to their teachers and we are grateful. And I would just like to say that we need to continue to seriously examine the way we finance education and consider other ways to ensure a more equitable distribution of funds, and that we are providing resources to our school districts that do not have the capacity to create that revenue location that can complement things like paying teachers and maintaining buildings, ”said Gams.
Gams says the way teachers are paid in the state is complicated. The minimums are defined by the state and are based on classroom experience, the highest degree a teacher has and the place where they teach.
But Gams says this salary increase is not just about teachers’ morale in classrooms, but also about taking a step to keep them there.
“There are more teachers leaving than entering. So we have to think about how to do something about it, how to encourage our brilliant young students to become teachers and enter these classrooms, change lives and help our students, and part of that is compensation, ”said Gams. “So yes, we absolutely have to look at how much we are paying our teachers and make sure that we are paying them for the level of complexity and compliance that this job requires.”
If the bill passes the committee and the entire Senate and Governor Henry McMaster sign it, educators will see their payments overdue at the end of the school year.
According to the Secretary of State for Education, this is a bill that aims to increase the remuneration of educators and does not necessarily help pay for cafeterias and administrators.
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