WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Many still look at teaching as an underpaid profession and WFISD plans to help change some of that.
Officials hope the state’s ‘Teacher Incentive Allotment’ can provide an extra bonus to WFISD teachers’ paychecks in the years to come.
“Teachers work really hard and they need to be paid what they’re worth,” WFISD Director of Innovation and Advanced Academics Ward Roberts.
They want to do that with the state’s teacher incentive allotment program, which could help WFISD teachers earn thousands more per year.
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“It’s an opportunity for them to be rewarded for their efforts, and based on their performance and their students’ growth, could see substantial raises,” WFISD Superintendent Mike Kuhrt said.
Teachers can earn one of three designations: Recognized, Exemplary or the highest, Master.
Depending on the designation, the campus you teach at, and an evaluation, you can earn anywhere from an extra $3,000, all the way up to $30,000. And that’s from the state, with no hit taken by WFISD.
Plus this isn’t a strict test score-based incentive, teachers are evaluated on student growth throughout the year.
“And the end results will hopefully be better outcomes for kids,” Roberts said.
WFISD hopes to start implementing phase 1 for the 2021-2022 school year, then add more grades and subjects in phases two and three the following years.
But a lot goes into this process: from finding out what you can do in the system, to what would work best for this district, work that will pay dividends for Roberts.
“Next year we’ll do data collection, and then the year after that, is when teachers will get their incentive allotment stipends, and so that’s really what I’m looking forward to, to be able to hand a teacher a pretty substantial check at the end of couple of hard years of work,” Roberts said.
And for Kurht, it makes WFISD that much more attractive to teachers outside of the district.
“It gives us the opportunity to recruit teachers that have qualified for these distinctions,” Kuhrt said. “Then that just makes us that more marketable than for staff moving into the area.”
Rewarding teachers who have worked through so much and maybe adding a few in the future, too.
To visit the district’s website, you can click here.