The Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the United Teachers of Dade union agreed on a tentative new contract Monday that would give the district’s teachers an average base salary increase of 4.26 percent in 2014-2015.
Overall an additional $70 million would be spent on salaries for over 21,000 teachers and 4,600 support and clerical personnel, including Race to the Top performance pay, the school district said in a news release.
The union said it’s the largest salary gain for Miami-Dade teachers and paraprofessionals in years.
“This is an important step in the right direction,” UTD President Fedrick Ingram said in a news release. “Miami’s teachers and support staff sacrifice so much."
The deal, if ratified by the union's members later this month, would begin to make up for what they lost during the Great Recession, Ingram said.
"We creatively used a combination of local, state, and federal dollars to fund this agreement. It wasn't easy, but it had to happen," he said.
The district said that the agreement new salary model "will facilitate a seamless transition from the existing salary schedule to grandfathered and performance-based schedules for the 2014-2015 school year"
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“This is a momentous day for teachers in Miami-Dade,” Superintendent of Schools Alberto Carvalho said. “The combination of compensation increases and a superior benefits package will reward those who have the greatest impact on the future of our students: our teachers and support personnel.”
The union said that teachers would get at least $2,200 in additional compensation through a combination of salary raises, pay supplements and "Race to the Top" funds. Every teacher will get a package greater than the current pay step scale, the union said.
The district said that $20 million would be awarded in Race to the Top performance pay, with awards ranging from $1,000 to $4,000. Counting the base salary raises and the Race to the Top money, the average salary increase for teachers would be 6.51 percent, according to the district.
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