Jordan School District spent two years negotiating and preparing its recent overhaul of teacher salaries, school board member Matthew Young said Tuesday, and in April launched the first phase of its effort to make compensation more attractive and competitive for educators.
But when Jordan’s plans became public in March, particularly its goal to pay a $40,000 starting salary, administrators in other Utah districts rushed to approach, match or exceed the entry-level offer in the southwest Salt Lake County district.
“It did catch me by surprise,” Young said. “I honestly believed that because our process had been a two-year process, that it would require a similar time frame for those districts.