Retaining Effective Teachers Policy
In Georgia, local districts are encouraged to compensate teachers for certain types of related prior subject-area work experience. For all positions requiring a state-issued certification, the state allows a defined number of experiences to count toward salary requirements, with most of them relating to the education field, such as serving as a teacher in a foreign country or serving in a professional position at the Department of Education.
Expand policy to encourage local districts to compensate all new teachers with relevant prior work experience.
Georgia should not limit this policy to only certain specific education field experiences. Such compensation would be attractive to career changers in other fields, such as in the STEM subjects.
Georgia noted that SBOE 160-5-2-05, Experience for Salary Purposes, was revised in 2010 to expand areas for which experience may be recognized to include charter schools and experience in school districts that have been granted increased autonomy. These districts may hire personnel from industry who not do possess regular teaching certificates.
Georgia also pointed out that serving in a professional position in private industry that is job-related to the position is entering in the Local Unit Administration (LUA). In this case, a maximum of three years' credit shall be granted for experience earned after July 1, 1995, and the individual shall be placed on the State Salary Schedule at the appropriate step to reflect three years of creditable experience.