Retaining Effective Teachers Policy
Virginia does not encourage local districts to provide compensation for related prior subject-area work experience. However, the state does not seem to have regulatory language blocking such strategies.
Encourage local districts to compensate new teachers with relevant prior work experience.
While still leaving districts with the flexibility to determine their own pay scales, Virginia should encourage districts to incorporate mechanisms such as starting these teachers at a higher salary than other new teachers. Such policies would be attractive to career changers with related work experience, such as in the STEM subjects.
Virginia disagreed with its score for this goal. Virginia asserted that the state does partially meet this goal because it does not have regulations that block school divisions from providing compensation for relevant prior experience.
While it is important that the state does not have regulatory
language blocking districts from compensating for prior work experience,
NCTQ believes that this is an area where states need to be more proactive in
encouraging this practice.