Bill Seeks Minimum $65K Teacher Pay

A House Democrat on Tuesday filed a bill for the 2024 legislative session that seeks to raise teachers’ minimum base salaries to $65,000. Rep. Tae Edmonds, D-West Palm Beach, filed the proposal (HB 13), dubbed the “Save Our Teachers Act.” The measure comes after the Legislature since 2020 has provided more than $3 billion to an effort to raise educators’ minimum salaries to $47,500. Edmonds’ proposal would put Florida’s minimum teacher salaries above the median teacher pay nationally, according to the most-recent available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data, last published in 2021, said median pay was $61,350 for elementary school teachers, $61,320 for middle school teachers and $61,820 for high-school teachers. The 2024 session is slated to start Jan. 9.