Rachel Dowell

The new Harding Independence Charter District teachers pose together on their first day of professional development. All of these teachers, as well as returning teachers, enjoyed a salary bump, thanks to the state legislature and the HICD Governance Board.

The Oklahoma State legislature passed a bill in early may giving teachers a raise, ranging from $3,000 to $6,000, depending on experience.  

These raises not only helped Harding teachers but teachers all around the state. In addition to the state raise, the Harding Independence Charter District Governance Board voted in the spring to give all district teachers a $3,000 raise, bumping up the state raise to almost $10,000 for some HICD teachers. 

This decision was made to provide a more competitive wage to help boost the interest in new teachers in the district, which seemed to work, as the district had to work to find new teachers to fill multiple vacancies left after the spring and summer.

“The raises assisted in getting a great group of teachers recruited,” said HCP Principal Joe Hughes. “There really was no downside, it was more of a benefit in regard to recruitment of teachers.” 

Along with the raises the governance board also finalized the decision on getting every HCP teacher a new personal work laptop. The laptops were given to teachers to even out district resources between Independence Charter Middle School and HCP. Before this decision, ICMS teachers used laptops and HCP teachers used desktop computers. The laptops will help teachers collaborate in new ways. 

“It allows all of the teachers to work on the same document while together,” said Science Impact Team Lead Rachel Alvarado. 

Science teacher Gregory Meerschaert said this is a step in the right direction by the administrators.

“[I] appreciate that the administration is helping teachers reach the goals they have set for them,” he said.