TEXT ON SCREEN (0:07)
What was involved in successfully increasing teacher compensation in Idaho?
SHERRI YBARRA (0:10)
In Idaho, we implemented something called the Career Ladder, which was scheduled raises for teachers. They could see over time what their raise would be if they stayed in the classroom. That was a governor’s task force recommendation. A group of large diverse group came together of business leaders, teachers, higher education representation to put that model together and then to take that to the legislature and get that implemented. That was a really heavy lift in our state. When I first took office eight years ago, that was the beginning of the implementation phase. It is still in place because we continue to work with a diverse group such as legislators, educators, and folks around our state to make sure that, that model stays in place so that we can recruit and retain the best teachers and leaders that are in the classroom with our students.
TEXT ON SCREEN (1:12)
What was involved in getting the Career Ladder off the ground?
SHERRI YBARRA (1:16)
First was working with legislators to implement policy and then making sure that the budget side, that piece was taken care of. Then trying to message that out to districts and what that looks like, boots on the ground for their professionals. There were a lot of pieces of the puzzle to put into place. At the end of the day, I’ve heard over and over again that, that was really worth the time and the effort to put that career ladder or that implementation of raises and teacher pay into place so that we could keep our best and our brightest.
TEXT ON SCREEN (1:56)
What’s been the impact so far?
SHERRI YBARRA (2:00)
The impact has been very positive, except for the fact that since the pandemic, we are beginning to see that the teacher shortage has been exasperated. We had a teacher shortage before the COVID pandemic. The COVID pandemic has really impacted our veteran teachers. Many of them have left the profession. They have either retired or had the opportunity to move on to remote jobs where they can work from home. We have seen a lot of our veteran teachers leave the field. Our, what we call novice, our early teachers, pretty much have been staying because of that career ladder. We have more work to do when it comes to our veteran teachers and trying to keep them in the classroom.