House leaders have dropped a plan to kill the minimum pay scale for teachers across Ohio.
Provisions in House Bill 343 would have eliminated a state requirement that teachers be paid a minimum amount based on their education level and years of experience.
But House leaders this morning removed those provisions, sending HB 343 to the full House without any reference to the pay schedule. The adjusted bill – described on the House floor as a “clean-up bill” that makes many small changes to previous laws – passed, with nobody raising any objections.
The House Education Committee had voted Nov. 17 to include eliminating pay minimums in HB 343, in a move some members hoped would let school districts create new or merit-based pay plans.
But that 10-5 committee vote came over the objection of all of the committee’s Democratic members and of the state’s two large teachers unions – the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers.
State Rep. Teresa Fedor, a Toledo Democrat, had been one of the main critics of changing the pay scale. But she told the House today that eliminating this provision allowed her to fully support the bill.
“All of the opponents are now proponents,” Fedor said.
The minimum pay scale follows the typical pattern of teacher salary schedules used across the country, with teachers gaining raises for years of work and for additional degrees they earn.
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