Palo Alto Unified School District Teacher Salaries Compared with Other Districts 

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The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) pays market salaries in order to attract the best, most skilled teachers for its students.  Compared with teachers in neighboring districts, PAUSD’s teachers earn somewhere in the middle range, falling neither at the high nor low end. However, compared with teachers at top-performing districts elsewhere in the United States, PAUSD teachers earn 27 percent less than their peers when adjusted for cost-of-living differences. [1]

Teacher Salaries 

PAUSD believes the cornerstone of the quality of education it offers is the high caliber of its teaching and support staff. 

 In 2000, previously satisfactory teacher compensation levels started to falter:

Retention is an important goal for school districts -- it allows them to staff classrooms with more experienced teachers and save the considerable expense of recruiting, hiring and training new personnel.  To increase its retention rate, PAUSD asked voters in 2001 for additional funds via a parcel tax (Measure D), aimed in part at improving teacher compensation.  That measure, which expires next year, was backed by 75 percent of the voters. Once the full impact of the 2001 parcel tax was felt, teacher retention rates began a steady ascent to their current 92 percent level -- the highest in five years. 

Starting Teacher Salaries in Silicon Valley

Starting teacher salaries in 19 out of the 26 school districts in Santa Clara County were between $40,000 and $50,000 for 2004-05.  As shown in the chart below, starting teacher salaries in the Palo Alto school district for 2003-04, the most recent data published by the state, are in line with neighboring districts, having remained level at $44,268 for the past two years.

Average Teacher Salaries in Silicon Valley

Palo Alto pays an average teacher salary of $70,411.[4]  As is the case with starting salaries, average teacher salaries in the Palo Alto school district are in line with neighboring districts. 

Average Salaries in the Nation’s Top School District

The PAUSD’s average teachers’ salaries are low when compared to the salaries of teachers at other top-performing school districts in the nation when adjusted for differences in cost of living between the school communities. 

Salary Increases

Raises - Teacher raises are determined annually by PAUSD during the course of public negotiating sessions with the teachers’ union.

Due to fiscal constraints, PAUSD has not offered raises to teachers, other than the scheduled step and column increases mentioned below, during the past two school years. 

Scheduled Increases - Teachers may advance on the salary schedule in what is referred to as “step and column” movement.  

Step and column models are a common practice in school districts across the nation.

Each school year, about 50 percent of PAUSD teachers receive an increase in salary from step and/or column movement.  Each step and column increase is currently between $1,000 and $2,600.[9]

Benefits

The level of medical benefits paid to teachers is also negotiated annually between PAUSD and the teachers’ union. As for all employers, the cost of these benefits has increased dramatically over the last several years – costs which are largely outside of the district’s control. PAUSD’s health care costs rose under 6 percent a year on average over the last two school years, below the U.S. average annual health care cost increase of over 12 percent[9] for 2002 and 2003. 

Teacher pensions are determined by the state. Each year PAUSD contributes a fixed percentage of each teacher’s pay to the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS).  As teacher compensation increases, PAUSD’s pension costs increase.  The contribution percentage (currently 8.25 percent) is uniform for all California school districts. The pension a teacher receives upon retirement is determined under a standard state formula that factors in the teacher’s age, compensation and years of employment.  Pension checks are drawn from the State of California.

Teachers also contribute 8 percent to STRS.  In addition, teachers do not pay into, and are not eligible for, Social Security unless they have contributed sufficiently to Social Security during other employment.  Even then, a teacher would not receive full benefits – they would be reduced by two- thirds because of the teacher’s participation in STRS.

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Last modified: 06/06/05