Few area schools pay teachers above the Ohio average

YOUNGSTOWN — Only a handful of the 48 public schools in the tri-county area offered starting teacher salaries above the state average in 2007-08.

A few more exceeded the average maximum salary level paid to teachers at the top of their pay scales across Ohio, according to a report prepared by the Ohio Education Association, the union representing 130,000 educators in the state.

Canfield, Howland, Mahoning County Career & Technical Center, Poland, and Trumbull Career & Technical Center offered a starting salary above the state average of $30,965 for a new teacher with a bachelor’s degree.

Austintown, Boardman, Girard, Joseph Badger, Lordstown, MCCTC, Poland, Struthers and TCTC all offered top salaries to their most experienced and most highly educated teachers that were higher than the state top salary average of $65,651.

None of the local schools were among the top 25 in the state in either the starting or maximum salary categories, which saw a top starting salary of nearly $42,000 in Beachwood City and a maximum reaching just over $97,000 in Aurora City schools.

Several local schools — Bloomfield-Mespo, Southern and Wellsville — were in the bottom 25 in the starting salary category with the very lowest starting salary in the state at $21,016 in a Southern Local School District in Racine, Ohio, in Meigs County.

Read more in Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com