WPSD gives teachers meager raise, implements performance-based pay scale

After giving Ken Witt a 10% raise this year and a guaranteed 5% minimum raise in following years, the Woodland Park School District announced they were “proud” to announce pay raises for educators ranging from 2-3.4%, with an average pay increase of 2.5%. Read the press release here. This means teacher pay will start at $43,000, which is an improvement but still the lowest in the area:

WPSD has also implemented a performance-based pay scale, a controversial plan that Ken Witt first tried when he was on the school board in Jefferson County many years ago (before getting recalled from that position). This new pay scale gives inexperienced teachers a higher raise than experienced ones, and it’s not clear how they’ll fairly judge each teacher’s performance given the huge variables out of their control. Here’s how the district describes the plan:

Interestingly, the school board never discussed this performance-based pay plan in any public meeting.