Grapevine-Colleyville ISD passes $1.8M package for teacher, staff pay increases
The compensation plan that was passed at the June 15 board trustee meeting includes a $60,000 starting salary for certified teachers.
The plan comes at a time when schools are closing due to low enrollment in multiple North Texas school districts where boards are consolidating schools, including GCISD, which recently closed Dove and Bransford elementary schools.
Parents and teachers have been raising the alarms at school board meetings and town halls about losing educators and special programs due to the closures and state takeovers.
The plan is funded by the district’s general fund and an amount totally $146,000 is funded by the state’s Teacher Retention Allotment.
The state funding is through House Bill 2, which was passed by the 89th legislature to help combat the state’s “Teacher retention and recruitment challenges,” according to the Texas Education Agency.
The district made the budget recommendation based on a Texas Association of School Boards compensation study and a Moat Casey staffing efficiency study that were presented to the board in May. The study looked at how GCISD teacher and staff funding compares to other districts.
Kelly Mires, chief human resources officer, said the plan gives all employees a general pay increase while also balancing the district’s budget.
What GCISD families need to know about the plan
The plan also details a 1% midpoint increase for teachers and staff that are on the professional non-teaching and technology plans and a 2% increase for those on a clerical staff plan, the paraprofessionals on the instructional support pay plan and auxiliary pay plans.
Other recommendations made by TASB incldude a $5,000 increase for campus principals and market adjustments totaling $47,324 for campus technicians on the technology pay grade.
“This recommendation is a little higher to ensure that our lowest pay input paid employees are given more of an increase over the 1.5% or one and a half percent of midpoint increase they received last year,” Mires said. “An additional $5,000 market adjustment for each campus principal, since campus principal pay is eight to 10% below the market comparison rate, according to the TASB study.”
Mires said district employees who are in the one and two technology pay grades will also see a market adjustment since they are 15% below the market average.
Board president Dalia Begin said that she was pleased to see an increase for principals.
“I think in prior years, or at least since I’ve been on the board that has been a group, just for context for the community that has been deprioritized in some regard and those are really important roles right? They are very key to our success.”
Trustee Shannon Braun said that the increases are possible because of the district closing schools.
In December 2025, the district voted to close Dove and Bransford elementary schools due to a decline in enrollments, and will be consolidating schools in the upcoming school year.
“So it’s essential that we’re continuing to look at our headcount, evaluate where we are and make those hard decisions,” Braun said.
Braun said the pay increase for principal is well overdue since they had not received a raise in at least five years.
The district was also able to use federal funding to give $2,000 stipends to special education teachers who work with students with different ranges of disabilities in a self-contained classroom.
Mires said the stipend matches the one already being given to teachers that work in behavioral classrooms, or other special education classroom teachers.