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St. Vrain approves $49,250 base pay for teachers

District may look at additional wage increase depending on this year’s tax collections
SVVSD Admin (3 of 3)
SVVSD administration building

The St. Vrain Valley School District and St. Vrain Valley Education Association have come to an agreement over pay and benefits for the upcoming school year.

The agreement was ratified by the education association with the condition of board approval, which was granted unanimously on Wednesday . The base salary for the teacher pay schedule has increased by $4,000 to $49,250, roughly a 9% increase.

“Our desire to become the most competitive district and the destination district — this puts us in a strong position to not only retain our employees with that increase but to recruit,” Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Todd Fukai said to the board. “As we deal with teacher shortages and stuff like that, that is one of the key points of what teachers look for.”

A base salary is how much money an entry-level teacher would make in their first year at St. Vrain, and pay for teachers with additional years of experience, qualifications and time in the district is decided based on the district’s pay schedule.

This is also administered to classified staff and administrators. Superintendent Don Haddad estimated that the average raise will be about 7.69%.

Additionally, the education association and district agreed that discussions would reopen to consider additional compensation for the 2022-23 school year if the district’s tax collections from the mill levy override exceed $56 million. Any additional compensation would be retroactive to the beginning of the contract year.

Fukai said this could help the district hit the $50,000 mark for starting teacher salaries.

The district will also continue its contributions to health and dental premiums, along with a 0.5% increase in the district’s portion of PERA contributions.

Other changes included language clarifications around special service providers, split days, professional development, individual plan time during late start days and hiring processes.

The education association and district agreed to continue for a third year a memorandum of understanding for special education caseloads.

The parties also created a new memorandum of understanding to create a task force to look at compensation for more nontraditional classes, specifically innovation and technical programs.

“We have a desire to look at those so we can continue to offer programs such as cybersecurity, aviation, welding, some of those nontraditional programs, so that we can become more competitive,” Fukai said.

Also Wednesday, the board held a public hearing for the 2023 budget. There were no changes or public comment, and the board is expected to approve the budget at their June 22 meeting.