reached an agreement<\/a> in September, and the school board officially approved the deal Tuesday evening.<\/p>\nLee County teachers will now have a base pay of $54,500, an increase from last year’s base pay of $50,500.<\/p>\n
The district will also maintain its retention raise schedule that took effect in July 2024.<\/p>\n
Teachers who have been with the district for less than a year will receive a 1% raise.<\/p>\n
Those with one to four years of service will get a 4.25% raise, five to nine years will receive a 4.5% raise, ten to fourteen years will see a 4.75% raise, fifteen to nineteen years will receive a 5% raise, and those with twenty or more years in the district will get a 5.25% raise.<\/p>\n
Special instruction staff like counselors, nurses, or psychologists will receive a 5.25% increase due to their high-demand credentials.<\/p>\n
One of the key negotiating points for the Teachers Association of Lee County was salary compression adjustments, which ensure that more senior employees receive a pay bump if their salary is not significantly higher than new hires.<\/p>\n
Teachers with three to five years of service will receive a 3% raise; those with six to fourteen years will get a 5% raise, fifteen to twenty years will see a 4.5% raise, and those with twenty-one or more years will receive a 3% raise.<\/p>\n
The new agreement also includes two notable changes: teachers will have 30-minute lunches, and their workdays will be extended by nine minutes each day. Each school will decide how to schedule this additional time.<\/p>\n
Both the school district and teachers’\u00a0union expressed satisfaction with the agreement, with the school district calling it one of the most competitive salary packages in the state.<\/p>\n
The two sides initially agreed on the contract in September, allowing time to anticipate the changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kevin Daly, President of the Teacher’s Association of Lee County, told WINK News in September, “It’s a process, and sometimes it’s a long process. We continue to make progress until we reach the goal, and tonight, we reached the goal.”<\/p>\n
Ron Larussi of the Lee County School District said in September, “We’re obviously thrilled that we were able to reach an agreement tonight. We know that it was a long and hard process, as typically bargaining can be, but I appreciate all of the efforts by the TALC bargaining team as well as the districts. We are very pleased that we reached an agreement.”<\/p>\n
Daly also sent WINK News a statement Tuesday evening after the school board approved the contract, saying, “We’re happy the board ratified the teacher’s agreement and look forward to the money from the raises getting into employee’s hands. We look forward to opening negotiations for the 26-27 school year in February of 2026.”<\/p>\n
This agreement with the school district is only for the current 2025-2026 school year. The Teachers Association of Lee County and the Lee County School District will need to reconvene in February to negotiate a new agreement for the next school year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After months of negotiations, Lee County teachers are set to receive a pay raise following the approval of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-34164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}