{"id":35440,"date":"2022-12-16T14:09:29","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T20:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=35440"},"modified":"2022-12-16T14:09:29","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T20:09:29","slug":"oklahoma-legislator-files-bills-for-teacher-support-staff-pay-raises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2022\/12\/16\/oklahoma-legislator-files-bills-for-teacher-support-staff-pay-raises\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma legislator files bills for teacher, support staff pay raises"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Oklahoma lawmaker is pushing for a teacher pay raise to combat the state\u2019s teacher shortage.<\/span><\/p>

Sen. Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee, filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session to give Oklahoma public school teachers and support staff a raise starting in the 2023-2024 school year.<\/span><\/p>

Senate Bill 28<\/span><\/a> would give teachers $6,000 over 9 years, divided into three $2,000 raises.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For support staff and paraprofessionals, it\u2019s a little more complicated: <\/span>Senate Bill 25<\/span><\/a> would give districts $1,200 per support staff member. Districts can decide if they want to give staff a one-time pay increase of $1,200 or a one-time increase in an amount based on performance or the need to retain staff.<\/span><\/p>

If Pemberton\u2019s bills pass, he said it wouldn\u2019t prohibit the legislature from implementing more raises in the future.<\/span><\/p>

Oklahoma teachers have been given raises over the last four years totalling more than $7,000. But even then, <\/span>Oklahoma\u2019s again fallen behind<\/span><\/a> neighboring states. Pemberton said it\u2019s up to the legislature to catch Oklahoma up.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019ve slipped to number four in the region, so that means Texas and Colorado and New Mexico and a lot of these states are paying more and are drawing our teachers out of the state,\u201d Pemberton said. \u201cWe already have a teacher shortage, now the pipeline is almost empty. We\u2019re trying everything we can to get young people back involved and keep older teachers in the system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Pemberton said he hopes measures passed last year \u2014 like the <\/span>Oklahoma Future Teacher Scholarship and Employment Initiative Program<\/span><\/a> \u2014 combined with more legislative efforts this year will start attracting new teachers and retaining current teachers.<\/span><\/p>

The teacher pay raise would cost the state about $110 million, but Pemberton said given the state\u2019s <\/span>$2.8 billion in revenue savings collections<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s time to \u201cstrike while the iron is hot.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cYou need to put your priorities out front,\u201d Pemberton said. \u201cAnd I think education, our young people and our teachers need to be a priority.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Oklahoma lawmaker is pushing for a teacher pay raise to combat the state\u2019s teacher shortage.Sen. Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee, filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session to give Oklahoma public school teachers and support staff a raise starting in the 2023-2024 school year.Senate Bill 28 would give teachers $6,000 over 9 years, divided into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":31227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,16],"tags":[855,1496,1494,1493,1495,1492],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35441,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35440\/revisions\/35441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}