Nixa Public Schools giving teachers a pay raise

NIXA, Mo. — With the start of the school year about a month away for many local districts, Nixa Public Schools is raising teacher pay and adding additional incentives this year to help attract and keep staff members.

“I’ve been on the school board for ten years, and every year it’s been a 2% raise, 2% raise, 2% raise,” said Joshua Roberts. “And we really decided that we needed to make a commitment to teacher recruitment and teacher retention. And 2% just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.”

School Board President Joshua Roberts says giving teachers a more substantial pay raise was at the top of the board’s list of priorities this summer.

“So we gave a raise to our teachers. That’s going to be between a four and a half to 5% raise to every teacher,” said Roberts. “We also added bereavement leave that wasn’t there before. You had personal days and you had sick days, of course, but now we’ve on top of that added bereavement leave.”