With vacancies to fill, Lexington’s largest school districts raise teacher pay

Lexington County’s three largest school districts are raising salaries for teachers and other staff this upcoming school year.

All three of the districts are paying first-year teachers more than the state’s minimum starting salary, which was raised to $48,500 for the 2025-2026 school year. South Carolina legislators also passed a bill that may help teachers retain their certification after leaving their jobs.

In May 2024, The State reported that a shortage of teachers was leaving South Carolina students without qualified instructors, but during the last academic year, the number of vacancies decreased for the first time since the 2019-2020 school year, according to reports from the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement.

At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, vacant teaching positions in the state were at a record 1,613. Once the next school year began, the number of empty positions fell by 35%.

With their raises, Lexington’s largest districts are hoping to eat away at their own vacancies, an issue that is more severe in some districts than it is in others.

Lexington 2

The Lexington 2 school district passed a budget on June 19, giving teachers of all seniorities and levels of education a $1,000 increase in salary. Supporting staff are getting a 2% raise, and administrators will have a 1% increase to their annual pay.

For teachers, this brings the minimum starting salary to $51,000 in the district that serves West Columbia, Cayce and Springdale. Returning teachers will also receive their regular yearly increase on top of the across-the-board raise.

“We believe these measures, combined with others already in place, will help the district retain the quality staff we have, and help recruit new teachers as well,” district officials told The State in an email.

The total cost of the raises will be just over $1.5 million, according to district officials. For taxpayers, the new budget as a whole will increase the property tax rate such that someone with a primary residence with a market value of $250,000 would pay an additional $20.

An earlier proposal sought to increase teacher salaries by $1,500 across the board, but an amendment reduced the amount before the budget passed during a June 19 board meeting.

Lexington 2’s board of trustees has approved salary increases for the last several years.

For the 2024-2025 school year, the board raised the starting salary of teachers to $50,000, alongside pay increases for all other teachers and district employees. This raised the minimum salary by $6,000.

Since the 2021-2022 school year, the minimum starting salary has increased by over $10,000.

Lexington 2’s teachers are paid based on their level of education and their years of experience. The lowest-paid instructor would be a first-year teacher with only a bachelor’s degree, while the highest-paid teacher would have a doctorate degree and 30 years of experience. After 30 years, the annual raises end.

As of June 19, there were 18 teacher and 20 support staff vacancies in the district, according to a report given by Stephanie Hucks, the district’s director of human resources. Around a month prior, there were over 40 vacant teaching positions.

“We’re getting there,” Hucks said of filling vacancies during her June 19 report to the board.

As of the most recent headcount available from the state Department of Education, Lexington

2 served roughly 8,500 students.

Lexington 1

The Lexington 1 school district raised its minimum starting salary to $52,000, an increase of $3,000, for the 2025-2026 school year.

The starting salary for support staff and bus drivers rose by 3% in addition to an increase in the percentage for annual step raises in the district that covers the town of Lexington along with Pelion, Gilbert, Red Bank and surrounding areas. Administrators and building supervisors will see a 1% raise across the board.

The district spent over $12 million in the new budget on implementing the recommendations of its Salary Study Committee. Those recommendations included consistent pay increases for all teaching staff, recognizing experienced employees and making sure no employee faces a decrease in pay as the salary schedule is adjusted.

The budget, passed in a June 10 board meeting, did not increase taxes for the district’s property owners.

Starting salaries for teachers were increased by just over $5,000 the previous year. Since the 2021-2022 school year, the minimum starting salary rose by over $14,000.

The district had seven classroom teaching positions to fill as of July 3. As of the most recent headcount available from the state Department of Education, Lexington 1 served nearly 27,000 students.

Lexington-Richland 5

Base pay for new teachers with bachelor’s degrees will rise to $50,992 in the Lexington-Richland 5 school district’s 2025-2026 school year.

Combined with incentives like the $2,500 New Educator Retention Incentive and a $1,000 American Education Week payment, this raise will give brand-new teachers a $54,492 pay package in the district that covers Irmo, Chapin and surrounding areas.

Teachers with master’s degrees and doctorates also received a $1,000 raise for all experience levels.

District 5’s support staff and bus drivers will both see a 2% increase in their pay.

The district will have a 7.4% increase in taxes as a result of the new budget.

As of July 2, the district had 61 vacancies for teaching positions out of 153 total vacancies, according to a district webpage. As of the most recent student headcount available from the state Department of Education, Lexington-Richland 5 served nearly 17,000 students.