When Connally ISD Superintendent Jill Bottelberghe stood in front of her newly hired staff assembled for their mentor luncheon, she could not help but let a smirk rise on her face.
“When you go home tonight, you can brag to your family and friends that you’ve already gotten a raise,” Bottelberghe said. “How’s that for a welcome package?”
The CISD Board of Trustees approved a new salary schedule for all employees during their meeting on July 24. The new pay structure includes a five percent increase to every step of an employee’s pay scale.
“It’s exciting to know that our school board supports us in everything that we do,” Bottelberghe said. “Our goal is to hire the best faculty to work with our students, and this investment is another tool that we have to do that.”
A recent salary study from the Texas Association of School Boards indicated that the district’s 2022 - 2023 compensation plan was slightly below the state average. By extension, it did not hold the capacity to be competitive against other districts in the upcoming school year when adjusted for cost of living.
“The fact that this is an adjustment across the entire pay scale is very important in terms of our hiring and retention practices,” CISD Chief Executive Officer of Human Resources Keith Hannah said. “When people are looking at our pay scale, they can see that we are not only working to compensate our new teachers appropriately, but also take care of our veteran educators as well.”
Members of the administration building went into the board meeting with hopes of increasing last year’s salary structure by three or four percent. They were pleasantly surprised when the board suggested going even higher.
“While we certainly hope that the state legislature will show teachers how important they are by increasing funding to schools, we have been working hard over the last few years to behave in a way that is fiscally responsible with the taxpayers money,” CISD Assistant Superintendent of Business and Support David Timmons said. “We are proud to be in a position where we are able to fund these well-deserved raises with or without governmental intervention.”
Under the new salary schedule, a first year teacher would make $46,700.00 before any additional bonuses or stipends. Every step of the payscale included a raise of $2,700.00, and teachers who are on any step between their third and eighteenth year of teaching received additional increases.
“The new pay structure really shows the commitment that our school board has to recruit and retain strong and experienced teachers,” junior high teacher and coach Rebecca Hunt said. “As inflation increases and the cost of living goes up, moves like this really help good teachers stay in an industry they love.”
The pay increases extend to every employee in the district. Staff members who work on an hourly pay grade saw a five percent increase on their midpoint pay level, which then naturally adjusted every other point of their compensation plan.
“Knowing that the raises went out to every employee was a huge validation to our purpose,” Early Childhood Center life skills paraprofessional Lexie Brandt said. “We work hard to keep things running smoothly, and this really feels like an acknowledgement of all that we do.”
In the wake of a state and national teacher shortage, the new pay structure serves as a strong recruiting tool - particularly for professionals at the start of their teaching career.
“Hearing about the new pay scale was a pleasant surprise for me,” first year high school English teacher Tanner Knox said. “This provides people like me with an extra level of financial stability as we get established in the profession. It gives me the opportunity to plan for my future.”
Moving forward, the Connally ISD Board of Trustees remains committed to finding innovative ways to recruit, hire, and retain strong teachers.
“This is about showing our staff that we appreciate their hard work and believe that they are worthy of such a reward,” CISD board president Steven Carter said. “This is a matter of betting on our people. We know that they are the best of the best and we want them to be compensated as such.”
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Click here to see the full 2023-2024 teacher salary schedule.