Charleston Co. teachers plan to attend budget talks, first vote on salaries

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston County School Board will discuss and hold a first vote on a proposed 2023-2024 budget that includes multiple actions to increase teacher pay.

This comes after months-long research and surveys with the Teacher Compensation Task Force.

The district has said the work to increase pay is needed to keep up with the cost of living and retain teachers. The task force reiterated the same goals throughout the process. The task force has and continues to push for teachers’ starting pay to be set at $58,000.

Lowcountry Teacher Advocates is a group of teachers, students, parents and community leaders that remain vocal and involved in the process to increase pay. In a release, the group states it supports a starting salary of $58,000 and proportional raises for teachers based on experience.

District staff members and the finance committee recommended a budget to the board that would raise starting teacher pay to $50,928. First-year teachers make an average of $43,146.

High School history teacher Patrick Martin says he knows the budget is a huge undertaking and is grateful for the collaboration with the task force about compensation.

“And while that number does seem like a large number compared to where we currently are, I think what we have to understand is that teacher salaries have hit that hit several times,” Martin says. “Act 388, cut a major stream of funding for public education in South Carolina in 2006. The Great Recession hit teaching hard in 2008 as we froze teacher salaries, we’ve never really recovered from that. Then you add on top of that. The economy booming in Charleston, the cost of living has come up, the teacher salary has not increased.”

“Should the Charleston County School Board consider [$58,000] too much of an increase, Lowcountry Teacher Advocates are asking that the salary of every teacher be increased by at least $7,000 to begin to reverse teacher shortages. That increase would mean a first-year teacher would be paid $50,000,” the group said in a release.

To show support for at least the raise to $50,000, Lowcountry Teacher Advocates created an online petition that garnered more than a thousand signatures in a few days.

The proposed budget would increase some property taxes to fund the increase for the starting teacher salary to $50,928 along with $7,000 step raises for teachers in the district. The plan also covers changes to benefits.

Martin says he and others plan to speak in front of the board at its meeting Monday to show continued support for a budget that increases teacher pay in a meaningful way.

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