Independent School Teacher Salary?

[Anonymous]

I'm considering leaving DCPS to work at an independent school. I have 5 years of experience and a masters. What are independent school teachers making? Share your experience + salary?

[Anonymous]

Masters degree and 8 years of experience: $62k. I taught in public my first 5 years. I may make less but my administration backs me up and we don’t have the behavior problems i experienced before. Teach at a northern VA private.

[Anonymous]

3 years of experience and I make $56k, no masters

[Anonymous]

These two examples are significantly lower than DCPS

[Anonymous]

Masters plus 18, 25 years of experience, independent school gave me credit for 19. I make 87K. I would make 30+ more in public. Insurance in independent is MUCH more expensive than public and behaviors are nearly as bad. I recommend leaving the field. You don't have too many years invested. I recommend getting out while you still can.

[Anonymous]

Where would you go if you got out?

[Anonymous]

Public pays far better!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Masters plus 18, 25 years of experience, independent school gave me credit for 19. I make 87K. I would make 30+ more in public. Insurance in independent is MUCH more expensive than public and behaviors are nearly as bad. I recommend leaving the field. You don't have too many years invested. I recommend getting out while you still can.

Plus, independent school admin who decide salaries are cheap, imo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where would you go if you got out?

I'd go back to school to be a speech path.

[Anonymous]

When I left my highly regarded NoVa independent several years back , (MA and 15 years of experience at the time) and went to FCPS, I went from about 65K to 80K. I got my MA+30 pay increase in FCPS and am now making just over 100K.

I would have to take a good 20-25K pay cut, and return to worse benefits, to go back to private. I might still do it when my kids are a little older.

The class size cap, extensive professional development funds, and AMAZING amount of planning time made for a better quality of life. I never needed to take work home. There were certainly still behavior issues, but they were of the “attitude” variety than the “flipping chairs” variety. The parents were mostly lovely with a few each year that fit the stereotypical nightmare private school parent profile.

I also really like my public school colleagues, but my independent school colleagues were firing on all cylinders. Smart, dedicated, and enthusiastic.

[Anonymous]

Such low salaries for private school teachers! It wouldn’t even cover the tuition at many privates. Do you at least get a big discount so your children can attend the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I left my highly regarded NoVa independent several years back , (MA and 15 years of experience at the time) and went to FCPS, I went from about 65K to 80K. I got my MA+30 pay increase in FCPS and am now making just over 100K.

I would have to take a good 20-25K pay cut, and return to worse benefits, to go back to private. I might still do it when my kids are a little older.

The class size cap, extensive professional development funds, and AMAZING amount of planning time made for a better quality of life. I never needed to take work home. There were certainly still behavior issues, but they were of the “attitude” variety than the “flipping chairs” variety. The parents were mostly lovely with a few each year that fit the stereotypical nightmare private school parent profile.

I also really like my public school colleagues, but my independent school colleagues were firing on all cylinders. Smart, dedicated, and enthusiastic.

Do you find the work load a lot more in public? There are just so many kids and the range is huge + special Ed, ESOL, etc.

[Anonymous]

I did not take this kind of salary cut. I recommend negotiating and looking at k-12s with bigger endowments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Such low salaries for private school teachers! It wouldn’t even cover the tuition at many privates. Do you at least get a big discount so your children can attend the school?

10 years ago, I made 42k. I had just finished my masters in education that year. Baltimore market. I was making 47k when I left before the pandemic. I received a 20% discount off of tuition and it was deducted pre-tax from my paycheck. If my spouse wasn’t making double at the time, I would have sent my K student to public, but as it was, I was grateful to get any discount at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public pays far better!

This is true, but I had to buy supplies myself for my students in public.

I’m sure I still came out ahead but I preferred the better resourced private for working conditions. Not once did a student bring a weapon to school there.