Baltimore City teachers will see at least a four percent salary increase for this school year under the new contract that was finalized Tuesday. Teachers early-on in their careers will receive over a nine percent boost.
Zach Taylor, director of research and negotiations for the Baltimore Teachers Union, said the negotiation process wasn’t easy. The union filed an impasse in the fall after failing to reach an agreement with district leaders on salary amounts, causing the process to be delayed while waiting for an appointed mediator.
“We had a very extensive mediation over five full days, some of them going very late into the night,” Taylor said. “For our current year, we really have an enormous step forward for early career teachers. And we improved the issue for teachers at the top who were just not in a competitive place when compared to teachers elsewhere in Maryland.”
The starting salary for Baltimore City teachers will increase under the new contract from $53,000 to $58,895. In Baltimore County, the starting salary is $58,500.
And instead of city teachers hitting a salary limit at $95,000, lifelong educators will now have a cap just under $115,000.
“That was really meaningful to us because after a career here, people had actually fairly low pensions compared to our neighboring districts,” Taylor said.
The contract still needs to be ratified by teacher vote, which will happen the week of February 12.
If ratified, all city teachers will be paid the new updated salary amounts by the end of this school year.
“Better late than never,” Taylor said. “We would’ve preferred to have had it on time. But we have it retroactive.”
Teachers will also receive a $3,000 bonus this year from the city’s allocated Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, which are set to expire in September.
“Every large district in Maryland, I think almost all the small ones as well, paid bonuses to their staff during the pandemic,” Taylor said. “City schools teachers never got one; we were the only ones who didn't get one. And so this also rectifies that situation.”
The new contract also guarantees payment for teachers who sacrifice planning periods to cover classes when substitutes are unavailable. And elementary school teachers, which do not have designated planning period time, will receive 225 minutes each week by Fall 2025.
“These are huge wins. We know that educators everywhere, but especially in places like Baltimore City, were facing massive amounts of burnout,” Taylor said. “Even when you have enough planning time, it's a tough job. You're spending nights, weekends, calling home making plans, grading papers, doing what you can to improve for your students. It's really tough.”
School counselors are also receiving their own payment scale, separate from the teacher scales, to represent increased compensation for their specialized degrees and expertise.
Taylor said the union is already gearing up to negotiate salaries for the 2024-2025 school year starting July 1. And the district is in the process of developing a new career ladder to better align with the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.
In October, the city school board allowed the current payment scale system – based on achievement units that teachers earn by attending professional development sessions and completing external projects – to expire.
Taylor told WYPR that hadn’t happened since the system’s creation in 2011.
Now, district leaders have to submit an entirely new payment system to the state Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB) by July 1.
“We're in this tough position where we're mid-transition,” Taylor said. “What we've done here is acknowledge the transition, take care of some items about that transition, while recognizing there's still a lot of work ahead of us. No one really knows what’s going to happen come July.”
