The Iowa Legislature passed a bill in late March of last year that raised teacher pay to $47,500 for full-time teachers in their first year, $50,000 in years two through eleven, and $60,000 for those with 12 years of experience. Pella Christian Head of Schools Dan Zylstra says that while their status as a private school does not force them to increase the teachers’ salaries, they have worked as an administration to ensure their budget allows them to remain competitive with local public schools to hire qualified individuals.

“We are not bound to keep that $50,000 minimum, but we do want to pay our teachers well and we do want to make sure that they’re taken care of, so there was a substantial increase in our starting teacher pay and our salaries are within 5% to 10% of the local public schools.”

Hear more about the latest at Pella Christian Schools from Dan Zylstra here.