Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Teacher Compensation in Mississippi

01:33 Salary Distribution: Understanding the Pay Scale

03:34 Impact of Experience on Teacher Salaries

05:18 Top Districts: Experience and Salary Analysis

07:15 Outro

Transcript

Hi everyone, I'm Ryan Earley, host of the PERS Pro YouTube channel. Today, we're answering one of the most fundamental questions for public servants in Mississippi. What does a classroom teacher really make? We're diving deep into 2024-2025 compensation data for over 29,000 Mississippi teachers to break down salaries by experience, distribution, and which districts pay the most above the curve. Let's get started.

Before we dive in, make sure you hit that subscribe button down below so you don't miss any of our future videos. Our goal with this channel is to provide you with short, easy to understand, financial education videos that are relevant to PERS members like you.

Disclaimer, this video is for educational and informational purposes only. Neither the host nor this YouTube channel are officially affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi. Always consult a qualified professional for personal advice specific to your situation.

For today's analysis, we're focusing exclusively on core classroom roles, elementary, secondary, and kindergarten teacher assignments across all Mississippi school districts. This group represents 29,300 full-time equivalent teachers. We've aggregated all the district level data to create a single weighted average for this combined teaching group for each district and also across the state.

First, let's look at the average base salary distribution for districts broken down into three buckets. The bottom 25%, the middle 50%, and the top 25 % of results show you how much salary can vary just based on the district you work in.

The bottom 25%. For the districts that fall in the bottom quartile of average teacher pay, the average base salary is $47,778. If a district's average salary is under $48,820, then they fall in this group.

The middle 50%, this is the bulk of districts. Teachers here earn an average base salary of $50,569. The pay range for a district to fall in this group is between $48,821 and $53,038.

the top 25%. The top paying districts in the state for teaching roles offer an average base salary of $54,589. That's nearly a $7,000 difference between the average for the bottom 25 % and the top 25%. In order to fall in this group, a district's average salary exceeded $53,038.

Next, we explore the pay bumps that come with experience. We grouped district-wide average years of experience into three common career stages.

five to 10 years average experience. Districts where the average teacher is in this stage report an average base salary of $47,159. This reflects the earlier stages of the career where pay scales are just starting to climb.

11 to 15 years average experience as teachers pass the decade mark, the average salary for districts. in this experience range jumps to $50,336.

16 to 20 years average experience. For districts with a highly experienced teacher workforce, the average base salary rises again to $52,572. This data confirms that in Mississippi, more experience generally translates to higher compensation aligning with the state's traditional step-in-degree salary schedule.

A high average experience level often indicates strong retention and a supportive work environment. These districts have managed to hold on to their veteran educators. Here are the top 10 school districts with the highest average years of teaching experience for our combined teacher group of kindergarten, elementary, and secondary teachers.

You'll see that Mississippi School of the Arts and Carroll County School District are the only districts in the state who have kindergarten, elementary and secondary teachers with an average years of experience greater than 15 years. One way to look at these numbers for all districts in the top 10 is that for every new teacher with no experience, these districts have another teacher with more than 27 years of experience.

This last metric is perhaps the most interesting. Which districts pay their teachers the most relative to how much experience their teachers have? We did this analysis by running a linear regression model essentially creating an expected salary based on a district's average teaching experience. Any district paying significantly above that line is offering a strong compensation package, often through substantial local supplements.

here are the top 10 districts with the highest average base salary relative to their expected salary given their average years of experience. These results highlight that while the state sets a minimum salary, local supplements, and district financial decisions, are the biggest factor in pushing a teacher's total base pay significantly higher than the average for their experience level.

I do want to flag that Sunflower County has a high average base salary for its elementary teachers which to me suggests that some non-teacher responsibilities may be included in their data. But what you see here in this table is actual unscrubbed data for transparency. The districts in this list are clearly committed to increasing the local supplement as much as they can afford.

In our next video, we are going to project lifetime earnings for this group of teachers, including both salary and retirement benefits. The numbers I think will shock you if you've never looked at the earnings in this manner. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. If you found this video helpful, can thank me by liking the video and sharing it with other PERS members. If you have a follow-up question about salaries, PERS, or anything else related to personal finance that impacts PERS members, please visit our website at perspro.ms and submit your question for a future episode. Thank you for your valuable public service to the state of Mississippi. We'll see you next time.