Gibraltar Combats Teacher Shortage by Bumping Up Teacher Pay

An aerial view of the Gibraltar School campus. Photo by Brett Kosmider.

The Gibraltar Area School Board just made it a lot more attractive and financially lucrative to teach and work at the school in Fish Creek.

On Monday, the board unanimously voted to increase starting-teacher base pay from $42,000 to $50,000 per year, while also making certain that incoming teachers’ salaries don’t leapfrog those of some longtime teachers who have not spent their summers going to school to seek advanced degrees. In addition to making sure that longtime teachers with bachelor’s degrees also had a salary increase to $50,000 or more, the board also increased pay of teachers with master’s degrees to at least $62,000.

“We had three employees this impacted,” Van Meer said of those who have advanced degrees but were not yet making $62,000.

For almost every other district employee not receiving the base-pay hike, the board on Monday voted to increase pay by 4.7%. The board is still searching for its next superintendent, a grade school principal and a director of pupil services, so it exempted those negotiable salaries from Monday’s vote and 4.7% hike.

Board president Stephen Seyfer said the 4.7% increase follows recent directives from both the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

These directives come not only because of inflation, but also because of nationwide and statewide teacher shortages. Seyfer said the teacher shortages are real, and a lot of experienced teachers have left the profession.

Wisconsin schools in general – and especially small, more remote districts such as Gibraltar – have difficulties attracting new teachers, said Van Meer, who is retiring at the end of the school year.

She said Gibraltar’s $42,000 base pay for a bachelor’s degree with no additional certifications or continuing education was fairly attractive when she became Gibraltar’s superintendent, but it has become increasingly difficult to get new teachers to “come up here” for $42,000 throughout the past decade. That pay has become unattractive, yet Van Meer said she could not in good conscience offer new recruits more than some longtime teachers were getting paid.

“There comes a point where you’re going to have a difficult time finding quality candidates at $42,000,” Van Meer said.

Act 10’s Impact on Teachers’ Salaries

In 2011, Wisconsin’s legislature, under Gov. Scott Walker, approved Act 10 – also called the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill – and stripped teachers of bargaining rights. Since then, base pay in Gibraltar has lagged, and traditional union-negotiated “steps and lanes” have blurred and faded from district’s salary schedules, Van Meer said. She noted that she came on board right after Act 10 and has seen increasing difficulties in hiring and retaining employees since then.

Gibraltar school board members have been discussing ways to improve the district’s salary schedule over the past few months. Earlier this winter, Seyfer, a retired Gibraltar superintendent, remarked at a public meeting that it should not be necessary for professional teachers to take restaurant serving jobs during the summer to make ends meet.

“A higher starting wage is necessary to attract candidates, especially to a small, rural district,” Seyfer stated this week. “The current salary structure is a holdover from collective bargaining and requires a young teacher to work 20-plus years before achieving veteran teacher pay status. The committee recommended raising the base wage to assure professional compensation for professional work.”

Van Meer said she believes the increased base pay and updated salary schedule will help the next superintendent in recruiting educators. (The board interviewed finalists for the superintendent position this week.)

The board assigned Van Meer to come up with a plan, and this week the board approved that plan, providing new pathways for teachers to steadily step up their pay. The district has kept incentives in place, too, such as offering teachers $7,500 per year to earn national board certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. (About 29% of teachers who try for the certification fail in their attempts.)

The new salary schedule with the base-pay hikes will add a little more than $300,000 to the budget, and the 4.7% pay hike for almost all other district employees will add another $98,000.

Narrowing the Salary Gap

In addition to improving starting-teacher pay, the board’s Financial Planning Committee asked Van Meer to find a way to narrow the chasm between the lowest-paid teachers at $42,000, and the highest-paid teachers, who have a doctorate and earn more than $82,000. Increasing all teacher pay by the same percentages during the past 11 years has increased that gap.

“The current gap,” Seyfer said, “contradicts the reality that young and veteran teachers are each providing high-quality instruction to students every day.”

Outgoing board member Mike Peot said that no matter what, some teachers come here and stay, and others plan to work for three years and move on. Still, he said he believes the salary changes will “move the needle to make Gibraltar one of the places teachers want to come to.”