A state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make DeKalb County’s school board members the highest paid in metro Atlanta.
Filed this week by Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, the DeKalb delegation leader, Senate Bill 531 would give each board member a $25,000 salary.
Board members in DeKalb currently receive an annual salary of $18,000, plus an additional $450 per meeting. So in 2023, board members took home $23,400 and were reimbursed for travel related to their roles, according to data on the Open Georgia website.
“We want to make sure that our school board is fairly compensated for the work that they do on behalf of our students,” Jackson said, adding that lawmakers also must consider the salary in the context of other salaries around the state.
DeKalb’s school board lobbied for a $30,000 annual salary, which would be a nearly 70% raise. Clayton County school board members currently have the highest salaries in metro Atlanta, at $24,000 a year.
According to data gathered in 2022 by the Georgia School Boards Association and this year by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, salaries for school board members across Georgia range from $0 to more than $20,000. Metro Atlanta representatives tended to make more than those in rural districts. With more than 92,000 students, DeKalb County is the third largest school system in the state.
Whether the board should be advocating for a raise this year is controversial — even between DeKalb board members. Their legislative priorities include updating the funding formula for schools and allowing retired teachers to return to work. Some board members, including Joyce Morley, wanted to see issues addressing student mental health added to the list.
“Ask for that raise, but it should not be attached to the things that are necessary for the education of children,” Morley said at a school board meeting in January. “That’s selfishness.”
A city compensation commission suggested in 2021 that school board members in Atlanta Public Schools should earn a $30,000 salary. Ultimately, their pay was raised by 50%, to $22,500, at the start of 2022.
School board salaries in metro Atlanta
Here are the current salaries in some of metro Atlanta’s largest school districts.
- Clayton County: $24,000
- Atlanta Public Schools: $22,500
- Gwinnett County: $22,341.68
- Cobb County: $19,000
- Fulton County: $18,500
- DeKalb County: $18,000
- Cherokee County: $14,400
- Forsyth County: $8,400
Sources: School district spokespersons.
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