How do teacher salaries compare in the region?

At just over $58,000 a year, the average teacher salary in the Pottstown School District is lower than any other public school district in Montgomery County.

At the same time, Montgomery County leads the commonwealth with the highest average teacher salaries in the state.

But that does not translate here in the greater Pottstown area, where the only the average salary lower than Pottstown’s is at the Renaissance Academy in Phoenixville — $48,475.

That’s in keeping trends for charter school salaries evident in a state-wide database of 2016-2017 teacher salaries built by PennLive. com.

It is based on information available from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which showed that generally speaking, average salaries at charter schools are lower.

Throughout all of Montgomery County, the only three publicly funded schools with salaries lower than Pottstown’s are all charter schools — Renaissance, Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School ($45,524) and Souderton Charter School Collaborative ($54,932).

Pottstown’s average teacher salary last year was even below the state median for average teacher salaries — $60,186 — this in a county with the highest average teacher salaries in all of Pennsylvania.

Where is the highest average salary?

According to PennLive’s database, at $99,253, Lower Merion School District has the highest average teacher salary in Commonwealth.

Close on its heels is Upper Merion School District, where an average teacher salary of $93,181 puts it in fourth place.

In fact, of the top 50 average teacher salaries in Pennsylvania, more than half of them are in just five counties around Philadelphia.

Montgomery County is home to 17 of the highest average salaries, although in this part of the county, only Upper Perkiomen School District, at $80,702, cracks the top 50.

Chester and Berks

Chester County is home to only two of the top 50 average teacher salaries in the state – Great Valley ($85,216) and TredyffrinEasttown ($82,984) — while Bucks County is home to 13 and Delaware County four.

Berks County boasts only one of the top 50 average teacher salaries — Schuylkill Valley School District — where the average teacher salary last year was $81,827, putting it at number 43 on the list of the top 50.

The median Pennsylvania household income is $53,599, although according to the U.S. Census, the median income in Montgomery County in 2015 was much higher — $80,675. That puts many of the average teacher salaries in this part of the county in the lower half of the salary pool for this region.

At $85,976, the median income in Chester County in 2015 was slightly higher than in Montgomery County, according to the Census, putting average teacher salaries in the greater Pottstown area well below the Chester County median.

In Berks County, where the Census lists the 2015 median income at a significantly lower $55,936, the opposite is true and the average teacher salaries in the greater Pottstown area are far above that county’s median.

Hard to hold on to teachers

Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez, who previously served as the district’s human resources director, said he is “not surprised” to hear Pottstown’s salaries are the lowest in the county.

“It’s unfortunate they are not fairly paid because teachers in our schools face many more challenges than in some of our wealthier cousin school districts,” Rodriguez said. “And because we’re so underfunded as a school district, we can’t offer competitive salaries to our teachers or our administrators.”

“It makes it very difficult to keep our teachers from being picked off by some of the higher-paying districts,” he said. “When they can go somewhere else and do the same job for $10,000 or $12,000 more; even if it’s just $3,000, over the course of several years that can add up to losing an entire year’s pay.”

It also “absolutely” makes it more difficult to hire new teachers, particularly when the dwindling number of college graduates majoring in education is fast creating a teacher shortage statewide.

Nevertheless, said Rodriguez, Pottstown’s teacher turn-over is not as high as you might expect.

“That just shows that our staff is mission-driven,” he said. “They get addicted to the work and they fall in love with the kids and many of them stay.”

However, this year turnover required the hiring of

DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA GRAPHIC BY EVAN BRANDT

11 new teachers at the Aug. 21 school board meeting.

One of the teachers leaving is 11-year Pottstown Middle School veteran Michael DiDonato, who is also the vice president of the Federation of Pottstown Teachers.

“This was a very difficult decision for me and my family,” DiDonato told the school board Monday as he delivered his last set of remarks on behalf of the teacher federation.

But in the end, he told Digital First Media afterward, the “ultimate decider” was his salary.

DiDonato’s wife is also a teacher in Pottstown and eight weeks ago, they welcomed their first child into the world.

“We love Pottstown and the people here, but having a child forces the household finances to the forefront and ultimately, you have to do what’s best for your family,” he said.