The Kyrene Elementary School District wants to scrap the traditional way of calculating teacher salaries.

Teacher salaries pit district against district

If the changes go into effect, the district would become the latest in what experts say is a growing trend among Arizona school districts to give themselves more flexibility in giving - or not giving - educators raises.

Traditionally, teachers have been paid on a rigid schedule that lets them know exactly what salary they can expect.

The schedule is a grid, and by looking at their years of teaching experience and their education level, teachers can pinpoint exactly what salary they will make from year-to-year.

But tight school budgets mean many districts can no longer afford to guarantee that teachers will receive more money each year, explained Chuck Essigs, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials. The Tempe Elementary School District already changed its salary schedule a few years ago, and Essigs said more districts are considering it.

"It's been a growing trend in the state for about the last three years," he said, explaining that it's all due to budget problems.

That's because the state guarantees to give school districts only a 2 percent budget increase each year.

So schools that use a rigid "step schedule" to compensate their employees are still expected to give those teachers a certain percent raise - often set at 2 percent or 2.5 percent - in addition to other pay increases for teachers who are "moving up" on the schedule due to things like earning a master's degree.

"It's extremely difficult to fund that schedule," Essigs said. "Before you've even done anything ... you're in a huge hole because your costs just to fund that salary schedule have gone up 3 or 4 percent, and that's the biggest part of your budget."

That's something the Kyrene district can't afford anymore, said Mark Knight, executive director of human resources. The district's governing board will vote on the concept at its Tuesday meeting, though the details will be ironed out later this spring, he said.

The new system would keep teachers from expecting raises the district has no money for, said governing board president Sue Knudson.

"You'd set yourself up for this big betrayal every year if you didn't give your step. So the push-and-pull there, that was certainly part of the reason for trying to look at a different way of handling compensation," she said.

The Kyrene district's current step schedule builds a 2.5 percent raise into teacher salaries each year - something the district hasn't always been able to fulfil.

"It's never that you don't want to give people raises, but its, if you're going to put more money into raises, you have to take it away from something else," Knudson said.

The new system will give teachers a base salary, then give them a series of "add-ons" through which they can increase their pay. These "add-ons" could include earning National Board Certification, running after-school clubs or participating in pay-for-performance plans. They can earn additional money for continuing education, too.

And, whereas under the current system teachers have to earn 15 credit hours to move up the step schedule and earn some $1,200 more, the new system will likely allow teachers to get smaller amounts of money for taking just 3 or 4 credit hours, said Kyrene Education Association President Anna Montalbo, a teacher at Kyrene Akimel A-al Middle School.

Montalbo said the plan has not met with much resistance from teachers, which she believes is at least partly due to the fact that it "reflects teachers values of professional development and student achievement.

"It's hugely being accepted by our teachers, they think it's great, and I've gotten a lot of great feedback on it," she said.