Frisco ISD 2007 Staffing & Teacher Salaries

When I first ran for the board in 2002, I said then that I wanted to attract the best teachers. This continues to be my goal and we aggressively pursue in it several different areas:

Reasons Frisco ISD Attracts the Best

• Competitive Salaries
• Quality insurance and health benefits
• FISD Child Care Facility
• Professional Development Opportunities
• Beginning Teacher Academy for new teachers
• Beginning teacher salary is $43,000 (2007-2008 school year)
• Mentor Program for teachers new to Frisco ISD
• Tuition reimbursement for seeking advanced degrees
• Extended Leave Plan
• Sick Leave Bank
• 401 (a) matching plan
• GOAL (Growing Organizational and Administrative Leaders)
• Frisco Education Foundation provides teaching grants and scholarship program
• Partners in Education program with area businesses
• Housing/relocation assistance through area realtors
• Active Parental Involvement and Community Support
• Student to Teacher ratio 14 to 1

In this article, I want to examine our instructional staff profile to see how we are doing. I think that to truly understand our profile is to compare it to similar districts in our area. For this analysis, I chose all districts who adjoined our borders. This will give us a lot of size and maturity variance (Plano versus Prosper), but it should also give us a certain commonality of economics. The districts that I will compare against include:

• Prosper
• Little Elm
• Allen
• Denton
• McKinney
• Lewisville
• Plano

Since Frisco ISD is the fastest growing district in the nation based on our size, it is expected that we would have a higher number of younger, less experienced teachers. To some extent that is the case, but not as much as might be expected. Also, if you compare our student performance to surrounding districts it is quite clear that our teachers are doing a wonderful job.

Teacher Pay Compared to State Averages

While I do not think that our teachers are paid enough, it is pleasing to me that we have been able to bring up our teacher salaries so that they are now above the state averages.

This is even more significant than the chart on the right indicates, because we have a higher percentage of young teachers than the state average. If you will look at the tables below, you can see that we are the highest paying ISD of the surrounding districts for teachers between 1 to 10 years of experience.

Frisco ISD 2007 Comparison Staff Statistics (AEIS data for 2006-2007 school year)

Teacher Salaries	Frisco	Prosper	Little Elm	Allen	Denton	McKinney	Lewisville	Plano
Teacher Beginning Base Salary Average	40,634	38,589	36,990	40,156	40,921	40,235	42,005	40,647
Teacher 1-5 Years Base Salary Average	43,451	39,729	37,472	42,224	42,871	42,410	43,309	42,661
Teacher 6-10 Years Base Salary Average	45,645	42,631	40,261	43,853	44,211	44,015	44,912	44,873
Teacher 11-20 Years Base Salary Average	49,416	47,009	46,695	48,268	49,615	47,324	49,680	49,360
Teacher > 20 Years Base Salary Average	57,955	53,194	52,213	55,605	59,013	55,063	61,712	59,358
Staff Experience Level	Frisco	Prosper	Little Elm	Allen	Denton	McKinney	Lewisville	Plano
Teacher Beginning Full Time Equiv Percent	9	11	13	6	10	2	4	6
Teacher 1-5 Years Full Time Equiv Percent	38	37	41	28	31	38	28	35
Teacher 6-10 Years Full Time Equiv Percent	26	16	21	28	24	31	25	24
Teacher 11-20 Years Full Time Equiv Percent	18	24	19	24	21	20	25	20
Teacher > 20 Years Full Time Equiv Percent	8	12	6	14	14	10	18	15
Teacher Experience Average	8	9	7	10	9	9	11	10
Teacher Turnover Ratio	14	20	32	14	11	18	12	15
Staff Educational Level	Frisco	Prosper	Little Elm	Allen	Denton	McKinney	Lewisville	Plano
Teacher No Degree Full Time Equiv Percent	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
Teacher BA Degree Full Time Equiv Percent	81	80	81	74	74	77	76	65
Teacher MS Degree Full Time Equiv Percent	19	20	19	25	25	22	23	34
Teacher PH Degree Full Time Equiv Percent	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	1

- Frisco leads the category
- Frisco very close to the lead

-- Richard Beaver - 2008