This school year, Carmel Clay teachers will receive the largest pay raise they have received in the past decade. In the new contract, it states that Carmel Clay teachers will see a 4% increase of pay this year and will also receive an additional 2% increase next school year. These raises, according to Fox59, are due to the extra money available in Indiana’s state budget. The new contract also increases the amount of life insurance coverage and adds foster care leave to the list of paid leaves. 

Although these raises are the largest Carmel Clay teachers have seen in a decade, the cost of insurance premiums has increased at the same time. 

For English teacher Elizabeth Kahl, she said the pay won’t affect her that much.

“For me, (the pay raises) are not going to impact me significantly because our health insurance has gone up as well and so that kinda matches with a lot of those raises and I’m going to be going on maternity leave so, if anything really, this is just keeping everything even,” Kahl said. 

Social studies teacher Ryan Ringenber said he agreed with Kahl as he said although the raise may seem, on the outside, to be significant, in reality, the raise only does so much.

“(The pay raise) doesn’t end up being quite as substantial as it might look because of the increase (of insurance premiums and) because teachers are paying insurance and some of that pay increase will go to the increase of insurance rates,” Ringenberg said. 

In addition, French teacher Kim Manlick said although these raises are the step in the right direction, they need to continue over time and throughout the country. 

“I think that teachers are grateful for (the raise) but, you know, (these raises) need to continue to move in the right direction because I feel like the profession is losing people because of pay, which is a shame,” Manlick said. 

Kahl also mentioned that the amount of money teachers get is something that should be reminded to others, as the profession is not, she said, “a lucrative career in terms of even being able to provide for your family.

“I think that this new contract is a step in the right direction in terms of the salary and catching up to where we (teachers) need to be but,” Kahl said, “I think we have a lot of room for improvement because I don’t think this generation that is coming into the workforce… (with their student loan debt), I just think it’s harder (for people entering the workforce to choose becoming a teacher as their profession,”

But Manlick said this doesn’t mean that teachers here at this school are not grateful for the increased pay. 

Manlick said teachers appreciate the raise and said, “A little more money is always a good thing.”