Teachers outline priorities for S.C. lawmakers in 2025
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - South Carolina teachers are calling on state lawmakers to do more to improve working conditions in the classroom when they gavel back into session in January.
The state’s two main educator advocacy groups say they want to see the legislature continue raising pay for teachers across the board.
Right now, the statewide minimum for teachers is $47,000, and Gov. Henry McMaster has repeatedly called for it to be up to $50,000 by 2026.
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But the groups note raises alone are not enough to keep teachers in the classroom, especially as the state grapples with an educator shortage that has only grown over the last several years.
“Teachers don’t feel they are doing the best job because of their working conditions and all the constraints that are being placed on them to not be able to run their own classroom,” Sherry East with the South Carolina Education Association said. “Teachers need to feel appreciated and respected, and they need to feel like they’re doing a really good job. And so when they don’t, they seek another job.”
East said they would like to see more done to address students’ behavioral and discipline issues in the classroom.
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“We’re hearing earlier and earlier, children are acting out aggressively toward their teachers and their peers, and so we want to make sure we have a solution to that other than just putting a kid out of school,” East said.
Both she and Patrick Kelly with the Palmetto State Teachers Association are pushing next year for reforms to teacher contracts and a permanent or long-term certification process.
They both say South Carolina needs to take a closer look at the amount of time its students and teachers spend on standardized testing.
“If we can improve the working conditions for our teachers, they will retain in the profession, which in turn will improve the learning conditions for our students,” Kelly said.
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PSTA is also calling on lawmakers to prioritize school safety efforts, one of five pillars of its 2025 F.O.C.U.S. Agenda — along with full staffing, optimization of time and resources, comprehensive systems of , and uniform opportunities to learn — which it says are necessary for student success.
“If schools are not safe, not only does that disrupt student learning,” Kelly said. “It also creates working conditions that will not retain educators over the long haul.”
An annual report detailing the number of vacancies at the start of each school year has not yet been released for this fall, but it does typically come out around this time of year.
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