Region 10 Website.

Districts looking to implement strategic compensation will want to look at the capacity within Human Resources or Talent Management to take on this work and may want to consider outsourcing some of the technical assistance needed.

Region 10 and TEA can help a district considering a strategic compensation initiative by:

• Conducting a needs assessment to find current salary structures, pathways for teachers, and identify the campuses, grades, and subject levels that have historically been hard to fill.
• Exploring options of collaboration with existing organizations that can help with such a needs assessment and/or offer support and technical assistance with designing compensation structures, teacher pathway opportunities, and other options for implementation.
• Examining salary schedules and compensation structures from surrounding districts as well as market supply and demand for teachers can help districts to establish their costs and expected expenses.
• Identifying hard-to-fill positions should first name those positions and then adjust their salary and compensation structures accordingly.
• Designing and selecting a refined evaluation system.
• Reviewing how to blend appropriate funding sources and realigning pay structures.
• Choosing appropriate marketing strategies to reach the targeted audiences of potential candidates and apply rigorous selection models to ensure the highest quality hires.

The costs for strategic compensation will vary from district to district, but may include contracted services with organizations offering technical assistance to redesign pay scales within existing budgets or the addition of stipends for hard-to-staff positions/campuses, positions with additional responsibilities, and/or bonus pay for educators meeting performance targets.

A well-designed strategic compensation initiative would expect to see an increase in the number of effective teachers that apply, are selected, and choose to remain in districts and on campuses, resulting in improved student outcomes in areas of proficiency, growth, and self-efficacy. Improvements in these areas would lead to higher graduation rates, along with the number of graduates demonstrating college and career readiness, thus leading to the number enrolling in postsecondary programs and successfully earning postsecondary credentials, particularly for students traditionally underrepresented in higher education.