Beginning July 1, 2023, each school district in the state shall pay classroom teachers a minimum base salary of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000).
For the 2023-2024 school year, each teacher shall be paid a salary that is at least two thousand dollars ($2,000) greater than his or her current salary as of September 1, 2022.
To be eligible for all of the funds, a public school district shall:
· Require that each teacher in the public school district is employed at least one hundred ninety (190) school days each year,
· Not adopt a personnel policy or incorporate terms into a personnel contract that provide more rights to personnel than those provided under state law in effect during the term of the personnel contract,
· Not have a waiver of teacher salary requirements,
· Adopt an employee salary schedule,
· Shall be open for on-site, in-person instruction for at least:
o One hundred seventy-eight (178) days; or
o One thousand sixty-eight (1,068) hours, and
· Utilize an amount of state funds equal to eighty percent (80%) or more of the amount allocated for school-level personnel salaries, according to the adequacy funding matrix recommended by the Senate Committee on Education and the House Committee on Education for the previous school year, for teacher salaries and teacher raises.
If meeting the requirement of this section would impact student safety or potentially cause a school district to go into fiscal distress under the Arkansas Fiscal Assessment and Accountability Program, § 6-20-1901 et seq., the public school district may apply to the State Board of Education for a waiver from this requirement.
If meeting the requirement of this section would negatively impact student safety or the fiscal stability or educational programs offered by an open-enrollment public charter school, the open-enrollment public charter school may apply to the charter authorizing panel for a waiver from this requirement.
Districts and Charter Schools can monitor their progress towards the 80% requirements by visiting the APSCN District Information Reports page and selecting the “Preliminary Teacher Min Salary and Raise Fund” reports.
The FY23 Period 11 Preliminary Teacher Min Salary and Raise Fund report is attached to this memo.