Trego's Mountain Ear

The Trego School board adopted a new salary schedule during the meeting on Wednesday, January twelfth. The new salary schedule will be applicable starting in the fall of the upcoming school year.

The schedule is split into three sections, by number of teaching endorsements.

Single Endorsement
	BA	BA+10	BA+20	MA	MA+10
Experience yrs	$33,920	$34,598	$35,290	$35,996	$36,716
1	$34,598	$35,290	$35,996	$36,716	$37,450
2	$35,290	$35,996	$36,716	$37,450	$38,199
3	$35,996	$36,716	$37,450	$38,199	$38,963
4	$36,716	$37,450	$38,199	$38,963	$39,743
5	$37,450	$38,199	$38,963	$39,743	$40,538

Dual Endorsement
	BA	BA+10	BA+20	MA	MA+10
Experience yrs	$37,450	$38,387	$39,346	$40,330	$41,338
1	$38,387	$39,346	$40,330	$41,338	$42,372
2	$39,346	$40,330	$41,338	$42,372	$43,431
3	$40,330	$41,338	$42,372	$43,431	$44,517
4	$41,338	$42,372	$43,431	$44,517	$45,630
5	$42,372	$43,431	$44,517	$45,630	$46,770

Third Endorsement
	BA	BA+10	BA+20	MA	MA+10
Experience yrs	$42,372	$43,643	$44,734	$45,852	$46,999
4	$43,643	$44,952	$46,076	$47,228	$48,409
5	$44,952	$46,301	$47,458	$48,645	$49,861
6	$46,301	$47,690	$48,882	$50,104	$51,357
7	$47,690	$49,120	$50,348	$51,607	$52,897
8	$49,120	$50,594	$51,859	$53,155	$54,484

Trego’s Salary Schedule is unusual in a few ways. While most salary schedules increase with the number of years of teaching experience, few consider the number of teaching endorsements. Though some offer fixed bonuses for coaching.

A teaching endorsement is granted by Montana’s Office of Public Instruction. These can include K-8 endorsements, which allow the teacher to teach any subject to students from kindergarten to 8th grade, as well as music and art. High school teachers are typically licensed for their specific subject areas -in my case, a Broadfield Science license allows me to teach science for grades 5-12. Special Education, Counseling, and Administrative Endorsements can also be found in public schools.

For comparison, Eureka’s Salary Schedule can be found on their website.

In comparison, this salary schedule has far more years of teaching experience included, and considers twenty further credits beyond a master’s degree.

The base salary for a teacher fresh out of school, without any credits past a bachelors degree would be slightly lower in Eureka, except that the district starts new teachers at step three on the schedule. Trego’s schedule is similar, but adding endorsements (this varies in difficulty, but typically involves some coursework and passing a praxis test) provides teachers with the more significant pay increase than additional coursework does alone.