Pay improvements

At state of the state addresses around the country this year, 29 state governors included teacher staffing as one of their priorities. Now ­educators in some of those states could be seeing pay raises coming their way.

Legislators in 23 states this year debated bills to raise teacher pay or provide bonuses, according to Education Week. Six states enacted those measures, and a few bills elsewhere await governors’ signatures. Advocates say pandemic-era school challenges and concerns about teacher shortages have raised respect for teachers and their work.

In Washington state, teachers will receive a 3.7 percent raise starting this fall. In Tennessee, starting salaries for educators will increase from $40,000 to $50,000 by 2026. In Arkansas, lawmakers passed the Arkansas LEARNS Act, raising minimum salaries for teachers from $36,000 to $50,000. According to the National Education Association, that move catapulted Arkansas from 48th in the nation for teacher starting pay to sixth.

Some educators may see no ­salary increases, despite legislative efforts. In Texas, a bill that would have raised teacher salaries died when the legislative session ended in May, but lawmakers again ­proposed a pay raise in late June during a special session called to debate property taxes. School officials in the Dallas Independent School District aren’t waiting for a statewide consensus: Administrators there approved an average 3 percent pay raise for teachers in June.

Police get back to school

Some school districts are bringing police officers back into schools three years after canceling or changing officer contracts in response to race protests. On June 30, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero released a final draft of his plan for returning police officers to some Denver schools. In June 2020, the DPS board unanimously voted to phase out police officers on campuses. But officials temporarily reversed that policy in March 2023 after a student shot and wounded two administrators at a Denver high school. In June, the school board voted 4-3 to return police officers to classrooms at the superintendent’s discretion.

At least 50 school districts removed police from campuses after George Floyd’s death in 2020. By mid-2022, eight had already brought officers back amid a rise in school shootings. According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, schools have seen over 180 shootings this year so far. —L.D.