Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Teachers in Franklin City Public Schools will benefit from a new salary scale that the Franklin City School Board voted unanimously to accept during its Thursday, May 19, meeting.

Based on this new fiscal year 2023 teacher salary schedule, the 12-month pay that new teachers with no experience will receive is $54,600. Teachers with five years of experience will receive $57,437, those with 10 years of experience will receive $60,419, those with 15 years of experience will receive $64,098, those with 20 years of experience will receive $66,401, those with 30 years of experience will receive $77,504, and those with 37-plus years of experience will receive $82,411.

The teacher salary schedule also lists amounts for 10 months, 10 1/2 months and 11 months. The salaries for teachers with no experience who then work for those periods of time with FCPS are now going to be $45,500, $47,775 and $50,050, respectively.

FCPS Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Federal Programs Jeff Ryder acknowledged that the school board had approved the new teacher salary schedule at its May 5 work session, but he noted that the salary scale presented May 19 was different because he had made a slight adjustment in the 10-month column to some of the earlier experience-level steps.

“The overall effect of that did not change the cost to the division,” he said. “It actually went down a little, oddly enough.”

At-large Board Member Carrie Johnson spotted an error in the amounts listed at the 13-year experience level. Ryder discovered the correction for it, and Johnson’s motion to accept all the salary schedules included the note that the acceptance included the correction to line 13.

Before the vote on Johnson’s motion, Ward 6 Board Member Jerry McCreary said, “I was trying to remember how were these figures determined? I think at one time we were comparing to surrounding districts.”

Ward 2 Board Member and Board Chair Amy L. Phillips confirmed the new salary scale figures were born out of that comparison.

“We had a discussion at the meeting two weeks ago, and given the cut that we are taking this year, of course we’re not going to be able to come close to matching Suffolk or Isle of Wight like we had discussed,” she said. “We were looking more towards the Suffolk scale than Isle of Wight. So Mr. Ryder and (FCPS Superintendent) Dr. (Tamara) Sterling sat down and looked at what the possibility was as far as teacher raises, and they came up with this.

“It’s not close to what Suffolk and Isle of Wight are going to,” Phillips added, “but it is movement in that right direction.”

Addressing the other pay scales, supplements and rates to be voted on, Ryder noted that the proposed administrator pay scale did not change from last year and neither did the proposed extra duty supplements list.

However, the proposed substitute and other hourly pay rates changed due to the state of Virginia increasing its minimum wage in 2022 and 2023.

“You’re approving two sets of rates,” Ryder said, noting that the $11-per-hour rate was effective Jan. 1, 2022, and the $12-per-hour rate will be effective Jan. 1, 2023.

After the board’s vote on the pay scales, supplements and pay rates, Sterling thanked board members.

“We have teachers in the audience, and look at the smiles on their faces, and that will take effect with your new contracts for next year,” she said, addressing the teachers directly. “So again, congratulations, and thank you, board members, for really investing in our children as well as our teachers and staff.”

Applause followed, and then Phillips issued thanks to all FCPS employees, especially highlighting teachers.

“I can’t pay you what I feel you’re worth because there are not enough riches in the world to show what you’re worth, but as a board, this is what we can do to start moving in that right direction,” she said, referencing the new salary scale. “And I think hopefully everyone across the state will start leading that as well and getting that movement going in the right direction because teachers influence every segment of society and should be appreciated accordingly.”