The School Board has settled what everyone who works in a St. Johns County school gets paid this year, and it did it in two special meetings that were called for that one purpose and carried one action item each.

The teachers’ contract passed Aug. 25 on a 5-0 vote, moved by Kelly Barrera and seconded by Bev Slough, and the support professionals’ contract passed Sept. 1, also 5-0, with Slough moving and Barrera seconding. Both agreements settle compensation through June 2027.

The teachers’ agreement is posted on the district’s website, and the money inside it is not spread the way most people would guess it is.

Here is what that means for your paycheck.

If you are a classroom teacher with ten or more years of full-time teaching in Florida public schools, your increase off the state allocation is $2,400, and if you have one to five years it is $1,200, and if you have six to nine it is $1,300. The line that pays the $2,400 is called the Classroom Teacher and Other Instructional Personnel Salary Increase Allocation, and the contract says that for 2026-2027 it goes to teachers who have ten or more years in Florida public schools, which means everybody under that mark is paid out of the district’s operating money instead.

Pay for performance comes on top of that, and it is the smallest line in the agreement. A final summative evaluation of highly effective for 2025-2026 is worth $100 and effective is worth $75, and an instructional employee who did not receive a final summative evaluation for that year gets neither of those and gets none of the allocation money either.

Two more conditions sit under the tables, and both of them are about the year that just ended rather than this one. Your hire date into a regularly established position has to fall before July 1, 2026, and you have to have worked at least 99 days during the 2025-2026 school year. Work less than full time and the amount is prorated. Leave before the contract year ends and it is prorated again.

The supplement is the big number, and a first-year hire gets it

Beside those two columns the agreement prints a third, headed Referendum Supplement, and it is several times the size of either.

Years of experience State allocation or operating increase Pay for performance, highly effective Referendum supplement Total
1 to 5 $1,200 $100 $5,000 $6,300
6 to 9 $1,300 $100 $6,100 $7,500
10 $2,400 $100 $6,100 $8,600
11 to 15 $2,400 $100 $7,250 $9,750
16 to 20 $2,400 $100 $8,400 $10,900
21 or more $2,400 $100 $9,600 $12,100

At the effective rating the performance column reads $75 rather than $100, so every total in that last column comes down by $25, which is the whole difference the evaluation makes to a year’s pay.

That supplement is not a reward for long service, and the plainest evidence of it is in the schedule the district uses to place people it hired this year. A teacher who walked in the door this August is put on a base salary and then has the referendum supplement added on top of it, in the first year, in the same table. On that schedule the base runs from $48,642 at the bottom to $53,540 at the top, the supplement beside it runs from $5,000 to $9,600, and total initial pay lands somewhere between $53,642 and $63,140 depending on where a person is placed. The agreement says the supplement is paid in accordance with a memorandum of understanding between the union and the district.

Those base figures assume a 7.5 hour day on a 196 day calendar, which is worth knowing before anyone divides one of them by twelve, and an associate teacher starts at $36,000. An advanced degree held in the area of certification adds $2,730 for a master’s, $3,760 for a specialist and $4,790 for a doctorate, and an employee hired after June 30, 2011 can earn only one of the three.

What pays for it, and the vote you cast

The board adopted the tax rate that funds part of this on Sept. 10, at a final hearing called for that purpose. The millage resolution passed 5-0, moved by Anthony Coleman and seconded by Linda Thomson. The budget resolution passed 5-0 straight after, moved by Slough and seconded by Barrera. The rate is 6.264 mills and the budget is $1,558,622,009.

One of the four levies inside that rate is a 1.000 mill the voters approved. The resolution the board adopted describes it in the district’s own words: the Additional Millage Not to Exceed 4 Years “was voted on by the community and it financially supports the district to recruit and retain, invest in safety and student welfare and preserve and enhance educational programs.” The resolution writes it as a levy not to exceed four years.

The other contract

The support professionals’ agreement covers the people who drive the buses, run the front offices, keep the books, feed the children and clean the buildings, and its numbers are not published. The agenda item the board voted on names the articles that were reopened, which were compensation, insurance and leave, along with new and updated memorandums of understanding, and it says the agreement “adheres to the statutory requirements of the Support Staff increase,” but it gives no dollar figure at any point. The district’s Negotiated Agreements page carries the teachers’ agreement and does not carry this one, and the salary schedule linked from the district’s Human Resources page is still headed 2025-2026.

Two district meetings are noticed for next week. The Half-Cent Sales Surtax Citizens Advisory Committee meets at 4 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Fullerwood Training Center, 10 Hildreth Drive. A School Board workshop starts at 9 a.m. Sept. 22 in the auditorium at 40 Orange Street and on Webex. The special School Board meeting on out-of-field teachers that had been set for that hour was canceled in a notice the district posted Sept. 3.