Rural Matters

The legislature will open in April. Teacher pay issues are likely to be on the agenda, with the Louisiana Education Association (LEA) seeking a $3000 across the board raise for certificated personnel and a raise for Education Support Professions (primarily teachers’ assistants) that would be the greater of either a $3,000 raise or a raise that brings the salary above the poverty level. The LEA also wants to address the teacher retirement system and to remove language from the funding formula that allows districts to deny raises if the average teacher salary is above the average salary of states served by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). Average salaries in most poor rural districts are considerably below those of wealthier districts in Louisiana and the SREB average, and so the provision would not apply to them, but it would likely increase the salary gap between high and low-wealth districts and the competitive recruiting and retention disadvantage of the low-wealth districts.