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Senate Education Advances Bill To Raise New Teacher Pay

Senate Bill 204 would raise the base pay for teachers with less than eight years of experience. Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, said attracting new teachers with competitive pay is the state’s best bet at filling vacancies.

West Virginia has close to 1,500 vacancies for certified teachers in its schools, more than double the vacancies it had just a few years ago.

That’s according to Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan. He is the lead sponsor of Senate Bill 204, which would raise the base pay for teachers with less than eight years of experience. Trump said attracting new teachers with competitive pay is the state’s best bet at filling the vacancies.

“It’s not going to be easier or affordable ever for West Virginia to create a salary schedule that draws a teacher with 10 or 15 years of experience in Maryland or Virginia or Pennsylvania to come to West Virginia. It would cost literally hundreds of millions of dollars,” Trump said.

Trump estimated the cost of his new teacher pay increase to be around $24 million.

“That’s the point of this bill,” he said. “I thought if we could at least goose the starting pay for teachers up to where the pay is comparable to teachers who have been teaching and have eight years of experience, that might help, it might help us being able to chip away at some of this vacancy problem.”

Trump called the situation in the Eastern Panhandle, where schools must compete with Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and to a certain extent Washington, D.C. for teachers, an “arms race.” Starting pay in Maryland is on average more than $10,000 higher than pay for the same position in West Virginia.

West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee confirmed that West Virginia’s average starting salary for teachers is $37,987, 40th in the nation. For comparison, Maryland’s average of $48,510 ranked seventh in the nation while Virginia’s starting salary for teachers of $42,251 was 18th in the nation and Ohio’s $38,231 average was 37th.

Of the regional states discussed during the meeting, West Virginia’s average pay only outranked Kentucky’s at $37,373, 44th in the nation.

Lee raised the issue of the message the bill would send to existing, veteran teachers.

“My concern with that is you have a brand new teacher coming in, and a teacher has been there eight years and the second year they’re teaching there, that beginning teachers second year, and that eighth year teachers ninth year, they’re still on the same scale and will be that way from that point on,” Lee said. “You’re eliminating eight years of increment raises for those educators.”

After the Senate’s Floor session, Trump reiterated that the bill aims to address certified teacher shortages in the most efficient way possible. He said there is no intention to offend experienced teachers, who he concedes are also underpaid.

“There has been some consideration of general pay raise increase bills, and I’m supportive of those,” Trump said. “My hope was that this bill would sort of front load some of that attack to allow us to compete a little more aggressively for newly minted teachers. There are other problems and that is apparently, fewer and fewer college kids are choosing education as their primary area of study and I think we would be wise to examine things that would maybe change that.”

Trump said he is open to considering any ideas that may help with the staffing shortages in the state’s schools.

Senate Bill 204 now goes to the Senate Finance Committee for their consideration. Trump said he believes the Finance Committee will begin work on several educational bills this week when budgetary presentations conclude.

“It is, number one, a constitutional responsibility of the legislature to provide for a thorough and efficient public education for our children,” Trump said. “Number two, it’s critically important to our future. I think everybody here agrees that the future of this state, in large degree, is dependent upon our ability to provide strong, sound public education for our children, and it’s a priority of mine and, I think for all my colleagues in both houses of the Legislature.”

Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Grady Discusses Bills, Committee Focus For Session

As the legislature settles into the business of lawmaking, committees represent a crucial step in the process. The Senate Education Committee gathered in the Senate Finance Committee meeting room to discuss two bills Tuesday morning.

As the legislature settles into the business of lawmaking, committees represent a crucial step in the process. It’s where legislators can study and discuss a bill in depth before returning it to the floor.

The Senate Education Committee gathered in the Senate Finance Committee meeting room to discuss two bills Tuesday morning.

Senate Bill 187 creates a new criminal offense of sexual contact, intrusion, or abuse of students by school employees regardless of the student’s age.

Sen. Charles Clements, R-Wetzel, is the vice chair of Senate Education, and the lead sponsor of the bill. He said he was inspired by an incident in his home county where school employees were involved with 18-year-old students, but no crime was committed due to the students’ age. He said people in positions of trust must face consequences for abusing that trust.

The bill was sent on to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senate Bill 124 authorizes the state Board of Education to create a child sexual abuse and sexual violence prevention program and in-service training in child sexual abuse prevention.

Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, is the Senate Education Committee Chair. She says although such incidents aren’t common in schools, it is important for students to be aware that something wrong is happening.

“Making sure those kids understand what’s happening to them and understand resources they can have, and people that they have, that they can go to if something that maybe they don’t realize is wrong, because a lot of times these predators will train these kids to think this is normal,” she said.

A revised version of SB 124 was reported to the Senate at large, and will be taken up on first reading Wednesday, Jan. 18.

Grady is a fourth grade teacher, and as such is the first full-time public school educator to serve as Chairman of the Senate Education Committee since 1970.

“I’m in the trenches, so to speak,” she said. “My experiences as a classroom teacher are really, really important. And it’s really hard to work on something in public education if you’ve never really been on the other side of it. It gives me a unique perspective that I’m really excited about putting to work to make sure that we can make some positive changes.”

Grady says she has a lot of priorities for the Education Committee this session, but tries to take time to meet with other teachers and administrators. She says she meets every week with Superintendent David Roach to ensure the legislature and Department of Education are working in tandem.

“We have to work together to make sure we’re on the same page. And I think that’s really, really important. But the number one focus being student success, every single thing that I focus on in my committee is focused around the students. And does this help our students in any way? And that should be the main focus of everybody.”

Grady says she and the superintendent have already worked together on their shared priority of early childhood literacy and numeracy.

Another concern for the chairwoman is teacher pay. She says she’s seen firsthand the competition from border states with higher pay for existing teachers, but attracting new teachers is also a concern.

Report: W.Va. Ranks 49th In Country For Teacher Salaries

The largest teacher union in the nation released its annual report Tuesday on educator pay. The data ranks West Virginia as 49th in the country.

The National Education Association’s 2022 review of teacher salaries in the United States shows that the average teacher salary in West Virginia is about $50,200 a year. Nationally, the average salary is about $65,200.

The report details that the “minimum living wage” for West Virginia educators is around $50,400 – about a $200 difference from the average annual salary.

Minimum living wage is defined by NEA as “income needed for a family of one adult and one child to have a modest but adequate standard of living in the most affordable metro area.” This data is based on 2020 dollars and was provided by the Economic Policy Institute.

For new teachers in West Virginia, the average starting salary is $37,900, which puts West Virginia 40th in the nation, according to the data.

In contrast, the NEA’s data ranks West Virginia 25th in the nation for student spending. West Virginia spends about $13,000 per year, per student.

From a higher education standpoint, NEA’s data show that West Virginia ranks 48th in the nation for faculty salaries, which averages about $75,500 a year in the state. Nationally, it’s closer to $91,900.

The report details the average salary for public school teachers nationally increased last year by nearly 2 percent.

However, when adjusted for inflation, salaries have declined by almost 4 percent over the past decade.

Senate Passes Bill Requiring Teachers Receive In-Field Master's Degrees For Pay Increase

Updated on Feb. 19, 2021 at 12:30 p.m.

The West Virginia Senate passed a bill Thursday aimed at keeping qualified teachers in the classroom.

SB 15 prohibits teachers from receiving a pay increase for any education level above a bachelor’s degree unless they have received a master’s degree that directly connects to the areas in which they teach. By doing this, that teacher would then be eligible to receive a bump in pay.

The bill, if signed into law, would only affect teachers receiving a master’s degree on or after July 1, 2022.

“This bill is essentially going to encourage teachers to become better teachers. That is the intent,” said Senate Education Chair Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson.

To receive the in-field master’s level salary, a teacher must teach at least half of their classes in subjects that are consistent with their degrees.

A section in the bill also allows a teacher who does not meet the requirement but does meet certain criteria, to petition their county superintendent for the salary increase.

“We put this provision in to provide flexibility for those situations that, you know, just won’t fit [the] ‘one size fits all,’” Rucker said. “We definitely know that it’s not good to make it that way.”

To be eligible, teachers must meet one of two criteria: 30 credit hours of post-baccalaureate graduate credit in the specialization they completed at their undergraduate level and also in the field that the teacher is currently teaching; or 30 credit hours of post-baccalaureate graduate credit in an area approved by the West Virginia State Board of Education that enhances that classroom teacher’s effectiveness.

“So, this will encourage people to get [for example] a degree in math and teach in that area? It will incentivize them to do that?” Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne, asked Rucker during discussion of the bill on the Senate floor.

“I think so, yes,” Rucker answered. “And it could also incentivize them [to take] other types of courses that would help them to teach math, or teach better.”

The state school board would be in charge of enacting rules regarding the in-field master’s salaries and criteria.

The bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but also saw bipartisan opposition.

Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, a school teacher who had expressed support for the intent of the bill in the Senate Education Committee last week, voted to reject it on the Senate floor.

Grady defeated former-Senate President Mitch Carmichael for his seat in the Senate. Carmichael was the target of many teachers’ frustrations during the teacher walk-outs of 2018 and 2019 in West Virginia.

Some users on Twitter signaled to West Virginia Public Broadcasting their concerns with the bill saying it would make getting the step increase in pay “more restrictive” and create more “bureaucracy to the process.”

Tega Toney, vice president for the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, said on Twitter the bill “limits the type of advanced degree a teacher can receive for the pay bump. It also works under the current salary scale, therefore not providing any additional ‘raises’ other than what is already allotted and codified” in state law.

SB 15 now heads to the House of Delegates for further consideration.

**Editor’s Note: This article was edited for clarification on the potential impacts of the bill.

West Virginia Teacher Work Stoppage Hits Pivotal Day Monday

Updated: Monday, Feb. 26, 2018 at 9:00 a.m.

Monday is set to be a pivotal day in the ongoing work stoppage for teachers and school service personnel across West Virginia. With the continued approach of county school officials remaining in question, the potential of legal action to be decided by the state board of education and legislative deadlines looming, educators and school workers yet again plan to head to the Capitol in Charleston to rally lawmakers for better pay and healthcare benefits.

As of Sunday, all 55 counties have preemptively called off school for Monday. While many have cited the work stoppage, others have cited other reasons such as weather or staff development. The preemptive closing of schools by counties for a work stoppage functions the same as a snow day or a closing for similar reasons. Whether or not that approach will continue on the part of county school boards is unknown.

“All of our locals have been in direct communications with their county superintendents,” Christine Campbell, of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, said.

It is also unknown if any solution will present itself Monday to satisfy teachers’ demands well enough to send them back to the classroom.

Leaders of teacher unions and their members are calling for salary increases, a permanent fix to healthcare through the Public Employees Insurance Agency and a stop to legislation on what they call attacks on seniority. They are also hoping lawmakers will walk away from a bill known as “paycheck protection” that would make union members opt-in yearly to have dues withdrawn from paychecks.

West Virginia ranked 48th in the nation for average teacher pay in 2017.

While Gov. Jim Justice has signed Senate Bill 267 calling for a salary increase of 2 percent this year with an additional 1 percent increase the following two years, teachers and their union leaders say that’s not enough — especially considering teachers were offered a 2 percent increase last year in more economically troubling times.

Senate Bill 267 also calls for an school service personnel and state police to receive a 2 percent increase this year with an extra 1 percent hike in Fiscal Year 2020.

While the PEIA Finance Board agreed last week to freeze until July 2019 proposed changes to the plan that would call for increases to premiums, deductibles and out of pocket costs, legislation to address short and long term fixes to the insurance plan have also yet to become final.

State superintendent of schools Dr. Steven Paine announced Saturday that he had met with county superintendents to discuss the continuation of the statewide work stoppage.

“Many asked whether the state was planning to pursue legal action in this matter. A decision will be made on Monday if an agenda item will be added to the State Board of Education meeting scheduled for Tuesday to discuss legal action,” Paine said in a statement Saturday.

If an item is added and the agenda is amended, Paine said the public will be notified on Monday.

Republican leaders at the statehouse, including Senate President Mitch Carmichael and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, have a called the work stoppage illegal.

“This is, in large measure, a county issue. They must decide whether they are going to declare this an illegal strike — as that is clear from law that it is — or if they’re going to just close school for another day on other grounds,” Carmichael said to reporters Friday after leaders of teacher unions announced the continued walkout on Monday. “So, to the extent that the counties have flexibility in how they manage their school system, the ball is in their court. So, we’ll see how each county [proceeds]. We certainly don’t want to tell them what to do. We’re not doing that by any means.”

Morrisey has offered assistance to state agencies and boards to provide legal remedies to the teacher work stoppage.

House Speaker Tim Armstead delivered a more reserved sentiment Friday in an attempt to quell teachers’ frustrations in hopes of returning them back to work.

“We in the House have heard loudly and clearly the message of our teachers, service personnel and state employees, and I don’t believe it’s necessary to continue this strike and keep our kids out of the classroom to draw attention to these issues,” Armstead said Friday in a written statement.

Gov. Justice has scheduled a series of town hall meetings around the state for Monday. According to a news release, he will appear at high schools in Wheeling, Martinsburg and Morgantown. Meanwhile, thousands of teachers from around the state are expected to head to the Capitol to rally lawmakers.

According to the legislative calendar, bills need to pass their chamber of origin by Wednesday, which is Day 50 — known as “crossover day.” The 60-Day session ends March 10.

Campbell said she, Dale Lee of the West Virginia Education Association and staff from each organization met with House Speaker Tim Armstead Friday and plan to do the same Monday.

“Up until late last week, we hadn’t had any communication with leadership. But that doesn’t mean something couldn’t happen to move things in a positive direction sometime Monday,” Campbell said.

Teachers and union leaders are scheduled to hold a rally on the Kanawha Boulevard steps of the Capitol at 2 p.m Monday. United Mine Workers of America president Cecil Roberts is among those scheduled to speak to the crowd.

Gov. Justice Signs Teacher Pay Increase, Unions Say Work Stoppage Still Happening

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has signed legislation that will provide teachers, school service personnel and state police with a 2 percent pay increase starting in July. The signing of the bill comes on the eve of a two-day statewide work stoppage planned by teachers and service personnel amid growing frustrations over salaries, healthcare and other issues.

“We need to keep our kids and teachers in the classroom,” Gov. Justice in a Wednesday news release. “We certainly recognize our teachers are underpaid and this is a step in the right direction to addressing their pay issue.”

Senate Bill 267 also calls for teachers to get an additional 1 percent pay increase in each of the following two fiscal years. School service personnel and state police will get an additional 1 percent next fiscal year.

With the pay raise measure calling for less than versions passed earlier by both the House and Senate, state level leaders of teacher unions say the signing of the bill isn’t enough to prevent a work stoppage on Thursday and Friday.

“We’ve said all along it’s not enough. Teachers and service professionals are tired of being told ‘wait ‘til next year.’ There is still a tremendous amount of anger and frustration,” said Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association.

Representatives of the WVEA and the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia have also called for a permanent fix to the healthcare program for public employees. While the House of Delegates has approved a one-time transfer of $29 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund to prevent rising costs to premiums and deductibles, the Senate has yet to approve the measure. Other proposed mechanisms for long-term relief are still far from settled.

Earlier this week, the Public Employees Insurance Agency Finance Board voted to approve freeze proposed changes to the plan, as was recommended by Gov. Justice.

“I’ve asked and the PEIA board has voted to eliminate the mandated participation in the Go365 program, the use of combined household income to determine rates, and to freeze the plan for 16 months while we examine it and enact a long-term solution to the PEIA problems,” said Justice in the Wednesday news release.

County officials have called off school in all of the state’s 55 counties for Thursday ahead of the teacher work stoppage.

Republican leaders in the statehouse have warned teachers and service personnel that a work stoppage is illegal. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has stated that his office is ready to assist any state agency or board with legal action to curb a strike.