Bill by a Democratic state representative seeks a minimum $65K teacher pay in Florida

A House Democrat on Tuesday filed a bill for the 2024 legislative session that seeks to raise teachers’ minimum base salaries to $65,000.

Rep. Tae Edmonds, D-West Palm Beach, filed the proposal (HB 13), dubbed the “Save Our Teachers Act.”

The measure comes after the Legislature since 2020 has provided more than $3 billion to an effort to raise educators’ minimum salaries to $47,500.

Edmonds’ proposal would put Florida’s minimum teacher salaries above the median teacher pay nationally, according to the most recent available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The data, last published in 2021, said median pay was $61,350 for elementary school teachers, $61,320 for middle school teachers and $61,820 for high-school teachers.

The 2024 session is slated to start Jan. 9.

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