After an approximately $20,000 bump in base pay, starting salaries for educators in Teton County School District No.1 this fall will be among the highest in the country. That’s according to the latest data from the National Council on Teacher Quality.
A new teacher with a bachelor’s degree is set to make $87,369 next year, up from $68,000 last school year.
“Based on the data, it is the highest that we’ve seen of the 140 districts in our teacher contract database,” said Shannon Holston, chief of policy for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
San Bernardino’s district near Los Angeles tops the NCTQ’s list, where first year teachers, with bachelors degrees, made $71,000 a year from 2024 to 2025, according to Holston. The list consists of large districts, so it doesn’t include smaller districts like the Silicon Valley hub of Palo Alto. There, early-career teachers start out at more than $90,000 a year.
The increases come after a state-mandated process to “recalibrate” teacher pay passed into law in 2026 for the first time in 15 years. State law requires that process happen at least every five years. The law, while late, will bump state spending about $125 million for the next two years.
A substantial pay bump is already driving more teachers to the county.
Lincoln County School District No. 2 is losing five educators next year, who will instead make the 45-minute or more commute from the Alpine area to teach in Jackson, according to Superintendent Matt Erickson.
Though many educators in the northwest corner of the state are set to make $19,000 more starting in September, others with families on district health insurance will now have to pay a portion of that increase to cover premiums. The district had covered those costs previously.
Five educators who spoke with KHOL without authorization to be quoted said the increases had stoked spirits and come as a relief as cost of living rises. Teton County continues to see exorbitant wealth flock to the tax haven without proportional returns in public funding.
The teachers’ sentiments were backed in public comments from Stan Morgan, teacher and president of the Teton County Education Association, which advocates for district employees. At a May school board meeting, Morgan praised the district’s process for vetting figures and its advocacy in Cheyenne during the time that lawmakers crafted the new law.
“People that were considering retiring may teach for a few more years, really good teachers. People that are thinking of leaving the profession have decided to stay on longer,” he said.
Salary is not the whole picture
This year’s recalibration bumped base educator pay in Erickson’s Lincoln County district by $4,000 to $67,070, he said. Teton County’s Morgan told district board members that morale was at an “all-time high,” but acknowledged that some who will have to pay more for health insurance with more in their family on the district’s plan “felt a little bit slighted.”
And pay jumps have been a long time coming.
“I know it sounds like a huge amount of money, but it’s 15 years since [educators] had any kind of big raise,” said Kim Amen, president at the Wyoming Education Association, which is not a formal union but represents teachers and educators statewide.
Housing and health care are the top two factors that complicates comparing salaries across districts, NCTQ’s Holston said.
That’s on Erickson’s mind as he seeks to retain teachers south of Teton County. His district trustees voted to eat additional healthcare costs this year to directly compete with Teton County.
“We know that we can’t compete salary-wise so we’re trying to come up with other ways,” Erickson said.
Lack of local control still frustrates some
As districts prepare budgets for a July 1 fiscal new year, some smaller districts and activities have been left in the lurch.
While lawmakers bolstered pay for teachers this year, they also created restrictive buckets – also called silos – from which local districts allocated money. Now, districts have less money for activities like soccer or speech and debate and less freedom to move money between expenditures, with most earmarked for the classroom.
Teton County and Lincoln County are both running a deficit next year to avoid activities cuts.
Erickson said lawmakers at the next recalibration committee can expect to hear pleas for the return of the “block grant” funding model that had enabled flexibility for local school boards. Lawmakers on the select committee on school finance recalibration are scheduled to meet June 24 and 25 in Lander.
