DE teachers to get 3% – 6% pay increase

DELAWARE – Teacher pay is a big talker across the first state.

Not only is school starting back up, but teachers are taking home more pay. The pay bump can be anywhere between 3% and 6%. That’s a significant number given just 3 years ago about 300,000 teachers left the industry nationwide.

“All state employees who are on the education pay grade are getting a 3% increase in their pay to the base salary. In Delaware, 70% of our income comes from state pay and the locals pay about 30, so to that 70% were getting a 3% increase for all education employees,” says Blair Catlin Brown with Indian River School District.

On top of that, teachers and specialists get an additional 6%, making that a 9% increase in total. Blair Catlin Brown also says this pay raise goes beyond them. Happy teachers make happy students, and ultimately they will learn more.

Catlin Brown says higher pay makes them feel valued. “You value me enough to put that into legislation, I’ve really just seen a spark in people’s eyes. People are feeling less stressed about how they’re going to deal with the inflation going on in our economy today. People are feeling like they can pay their student loans, they just feel a bit of that stress coming off of them, teacher burnout is real so anything we can do to take a little bit of that stress off their plate is huge,” Catlin Brown said.

After the first year, the 3% will remain, but teachers would like to see this continue on into the future. Education officials hope that they can get Delaware up to level with other surrounding states for pay increases.

Catlin Brown encourages the public to speak with legislators, so that teacher pay continues to even out.