The Knoxville School Board approved teacher salary increases at their special session Monday night.

These salary increases and revisions to the schedule are due to recent state legislation approved to increase teacher salaries. KCSD Superintendent Cassi Pearson spoke at the meeting, and said that the new salary schedule developed will help satisfy the new requirements set by the state.

“This is revised because of the new state law that includes minimums for beginning teachers at $47,500, and any teacher with 12 years of experience for $60,000. Craig and Matt Heston have worked back and forth to create this. The personnel committee met along with the interest based bargaining team, and everyone was in agreement that this was a good solution for this coming year to satisfy those new requirements in law.”

Due to the amount of funds received by the state, the district also increased teacher salaries by $146 across the board as part of the new salary schedule.