Blue Valley teachers, staff get 6% pay bump as new year starts

Employees across the Blue Valley School District will soon see a jump in their annual pay.

All Blue Valley employees, including classroom teachers as well as “classified” staff like paraprofessionals and office workers, will receive a 6% increase in the salary schedule, as approved by the Blue Valley Board of Education this week.

Both “professional” employees (like teachers) and “classified” employees (like paraprofessionals and office staff) will receive 6% increases in their annual salary. File photo.

The pay raise begins this school year

The Blue Valley Board of Education approved the pay raise at its Monday meeting, just before the start of a new school year. (Blue Valley students return to classes Wednesday.)
The change came with an updated agreement between the Blue Valley Board of Education and the Blue Valley Education Association, the local teachers union.
The new agreement raises the minimum salary for a Blue Valley professional employee — an employee with a certification or license — from $46,000 to $48,000 annually.

The district also updated its leave of absence policy

Under the new agreement with the union, employees can now use up to seven days of personal leave.
Employees who have experienced the loss of a pregnancy may now also take up to five days of bereavement leave, and employees whose children experienced the loss of pregnancy can take up to three days of bereavement leave.
“We need to take care of our people,” said Blue Valley Superintendent Tonya Merrigan. “The people we have are — again, I say it all the time they’re the heart and soul of this district and we wouldn’t be who we are without them.”

Kansas teachers recently pushed for pay increases

The pay raise in Blue Valley comes amid the worst an ongoing teacher shortage in Kansas, made more acute in recent years, analysts say, by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and politicized debates over race and gender in schools.
Earlier this year, members of a state task force argued that increasing teacher pay could help ease the shortage — along with expanding state scholarship programs and paying student teachers for their work.
Widespread teacher shortages across the country go back to at least 2019, but the problem grew significantly last year, with more than half of U.S. public schools beginning the 2022-23 school year understaffed.

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