Use SIS & ERP Data to Pay Teachers More

#Business

Erin Werra

by Erin Werra

Erin Werra Edtech Thought Leader

Read time:

Teacher pay increases dominate the wish lists of administrators looking to reduce turnover, but what if your board (or budget office) isn’t on board?

Administrators, superintendents, and their teams looking to make positive change for teachers can use data in their student information system (SIS) and enterprise resource system (ERP) to make the case. Here’s what that might look like.

Take stock of what exists today

Just as educators map progress using benchmarks, it’s imperative to mark your starting point in your journey to increasing teacher pay. Both in your district and outside it, teacher compensation is going to attract or repel high-performing applicants.

Admin teams use ERP systems to review a district’s worth of salary, position, and benefit data and spot trends. Trends are powerful: sharing these high-level insights with board members can make the case for improving salary, and thus retention, at the district level.

Track trends of where the district has been—and where you can grow from here

Recent survey data from the National Education Association shows that a whopping 37 percent of teachers report struggling to make a living wage, and 40 percent hold more than one job. The survey also reports food and medical insecurity stats among teachers.

Each district has a unique trend report, and not every district has a teacher pay and retention deficit—regardless, taking stock of growth curves is crucial to retaining high-performers. Not only are neighboring districts attractive prospects for certain families, but also for quality educators.

There are multiple trends to compare when determining if compensation remains competitive for your district. These may include:

Salary and wage information
Position types
FTE vs. PTE
Calendar type (9 vs. 12 month)

Getting a complete picture—quite literally—of the different types of roles and the population of educators and education support staff within the district can be eye-opening for those who aren’t in schools day in and day out. To do this effectively, data storytelling really requires images.

Visual representations of education data do not have to take months and a graphic designer. Learn more about how to take your data and make it speak for itself.

Once the trends are displayed visually, presenting and translating the story to boards and the wider community becomes much easier.

Mind the gaps

Identifying trends always conjures up a mental image of charts and graphs moving up, up up. However, the best part of identifying all these norms is the opportunity to challenge them, find exceptions, and mind the gaps.

Identify the excessive turnover and the rock-solid teams.

Figure out who needs intensive mentorship and who needs an additional set of hands.

The opportunities are waiting to be discovered, and certain sites may need more than others. Being able to parse through district-level data visually allows different people to spot gaps or needs in the data that are hard to identify in raw reports.

Reward those rocking teaching and learning

Now, up until this moment we’ve been really looking primarily at ERP data—that is, housed in the finance and HR side of school data. Shifting to the SIS side, you may want to identify:

Usage rates: Are staff using edtech tools?
Behavior tracking data by building or classroom
Academic growth by classroom
Intervention requests by classroom
Numerous other intricate signs of highly engaged teachers

These pieces of data, along with so many more depending on unique district needs, tell a story about life in classrooms around the district. While it’s not the ENTIRE story (teachers defy definition by data alone), it certainly gives a clue as to who is investing in students, and that makes all the difference. Retention based on improving student outcomes is a recipe with great potential.

Every cent is precious in a school district, but none more valuable than salary and benefits for educators. Using SIS and ERP tools to make smart decisions and balance a tighter budget while still investing in teacher retention is a win on several levels.

Follow-up resource: Beautiful budgets

Budgets made beautiful can result in better funding support. Here's how to get started.