PG Schools Low on Teacher Pay Rankings

Based solely on salary, the best place to teach in the Maryland suburbs is Montgomery County, with a more than $9,000 edge over adjacent Prince George’s County.

Arlington County in Virginia tops the new study comparing wages at local school districts, according to the Washington Area Boards of Education report. The study measured teacher pay for 10 school districts; Washington, DC, schools were not included in the study.

The average teacher salary in Arlington County was $78,002 a year. Falls Church, VA, schools ranked second, at $76,495.

Montgomery County ranked third, with an annual average teacher salary of $76,029. That’s about $9,300 more than the $66,270 annual average paid in Prince George’s County.

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And Prince William County VA schools were at the bottom of the pay scale, with an average salary of $64,523, the report says.

School officials told The Washington Post they pay teachers more to retain experienced teachers with graduate degrees. In some systems with lower pay, the teaching pool tends to be younger with less experience.

While D.C. Public Schools does not take part in the survey, two years ago the city’s average teacher salary was $77,500, the highest in the region, the newspaper reports.

Schools in Montgomery County and DC are hiring away teachers from lower-paying districts such as Prince George’s County, officials said.

Theresa Mitchell Dudley, the president of the Prince George’s County Educators’ Association, told the Post, “We recruit them, we train them, and then, because of financial reasons, we lose a lot of them.”