Superintendent Dorsey Hopson said Thursday that all teachers in Shelby County Schools will receive a 3 percent raise this school year instead of just those who receive top ratings on their evaluations.
He cited delays by the State Department of Education in providing student test scores that help determine which teachers score a 3 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5 on their evaluations. The school system’s budget initially earmarked the raises only for top-tier teachers.
Hopson told the district’s educators in an email Thursday that they’ll see the raise reflected in their Nov. 18 paychecks. The pay hikes will be retroactive and will also go to librarians, counselors, instructional facilitators, coaches, social workers, physical/speech therapists and psychologists.
The decision came after Hopson learned that the district won’t receive the state’s testing data until December. Last month, he had told teachers the district should receive the data in time to hand out the raises beginning in November.
“You are all deserving of our gratitude for demonstrating your commitment to our students and patience throughout this frustrating process,” Hopson wrote.
This is the second significant increase for Shelby County teachers since the 2013 merger of Memphis City Schools and legacy Shelby County Schools. The district awarded raises in 2015 based on seniority, while this year’s raise would have been the first awarded based on performance.
Representatives of teachers unions were thrilled with the news.
“In the future, I hope Superintendent Hopson will continue to distribute salary increases fairly, instead of basing raises on flawed test scores that do not measure our teachers’ true contribution to Shelby County students,” said Karla Carpenter, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Education Association.
Shelby County’s raise is being funded with additional state money earmarked for teacher raises. Gov. Bill Haslam and the legislature allocated money in this year’s state budget for 4 percent raises for K-12 teachers. However, not all Tennessee educators will see that increase because of a provision that gives spending leeway to districts that already match or better the state’s weighted average salary of $43,216. Shelby County Schools has the highest average weighted salaries in the state at $54,187. (Read Chalkbeat’s explainer on why the disbursement of Tennessee’s two-year investment in teacher raises can vary from district to district.)