How we collect and check the numbers
Every salary on The Teacher File comes from an official document published by a school district or its teachers' union. We currently cover 9 Florida districts. This page explains where the numbers come from, how we check them, and where they can still fall short.
1. Sources
For each district we find the current instructional salary schedule on the district's human resources pages or the union's contract pages. That's usually a PDF salary schedule, sometimes a full union contract with the schedule in an appendix, and occasionally a web page (for example, a district's starting-salary calculator). Every district page links the exact documents we used under Sources, along with the effective or board-approval date when the document states one.
We prefer documents published by the district. When the district doesn't publish one, we use the union's ratified agreement and say so on the page.
2. Extraction
Salary schedules are tables in PDFs, and many don't survive copy-and-paste: columns shift, rows merge, and totals land on the wrong line. We render each page as an image and have a vision model read the table into structured data, running on our own computer. Where the model misreads a table (for example, treating a "Total" column as a degree column), we type the rows in by hand from the document instead.
3. Checks every number has to pass
- It must be printed in the source. Every salary we publish has to appear on the specific page of the document it came from. If a number isn't found there, the district isn't published until it's fixed. This catches invented or misread values.
- Computed values must reproduce the district's own totals. When we calculate pay (for example, Miami-Dade's referendum supplement, which is a percentage of base pay), the formula has to match every total the district prints.
- It must make sense. We flag pay that falls as experience rises, degree columns out of order (a master's paying less than a bachelor's), overlapping experience ranges, and salaries outside a plausible range. Each flag is checked against the page image.
- The facts around the table must be sourced too. Contract days, degree supplements, referendum amounts and raise percentages appear only when the document states them. If we can't source a figure, we leave it out rather than estimate it.
4. What we show, and what we don't
- Salaries are annual base pay from the schedule, plus any supplement the district builds into the schedule (such as a referendum supplement), as noted on each page.
- We don't include health insurance, retirement contributions, or one-time bonuses, and we don't show take-home pay (yet).
- Florida districts pay new and veteran teachers on different schedules. Each district page says who each table applies to. Where a district only publishes salary ranges or floors instead of a step schedule, we say that too.
- Insights such as rankings, comparisons with neighboring districts and career totals are calculated from the published numbers. Career totals are simple sums before taxes, not projections of future raises.
5. Updates
Districts bargain pay every year, and new schedules are often approved months into the school year. We re-check district and union pages for new documents and update a district's page when a new schedule is published. Each page shows the school year and, where available, the effective and board-approval dates, so you can see how current it is.
6. Limits
A salary schedule tells you how a district pays, not what any one person earns. Your placement depends on how the district credits your experience, your evaluation history, your degree and certification area, and supplements for specific roles. Always confirm with the district's HR office before making a decision.
Found a mistake?
Tell us. Email [email protected]with the district and what looks wrong; a link to the document you're looking at helps. We check every report against the source and fix confirmed errors. See the contact page for more.