---
title: HB 631. Education; require minimum base salary for certified professional personnel with bachelor's degrees be based upon national average living wage
collection: bills
id: 2025-2026/hb631
cite_as: HB 631, 2025-2026 Regular Session (Ga.)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb631
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb631.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb631/text
source_url: https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/70808
date: 2025-02-28
status: introduced
corpus_version: bills-2026-09-12
license: Public record of the Georgia General Assembly, via LegiScan; see about.md
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
up: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026.md
previous: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb630.md
next: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb632.md
index: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/index.md
omitted: votes and history
omitted_chars: 129
omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb631.md?full=1
bill_number: HB 631
session: 2025-2026 Regular Session
session_slug: 2025-2026
chamber: House
bill_type: bill
status_date: 2025-02-26
last_action: House Second Readers
sponsors:
- Mekyah McQueen
- Tangie Herring
- Lydia Glaize
- Bryce Berry
- Phil Olaleye
text_version: Introduced
has_text: true
legiscan_url: https://legiscan.com/GA/bill/HB631/2025
upstream_id: 1985855
summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5
topic_tags:
- teacher pay
- education funding
- school salary schedules
- public school teachers
---
# HB 631. Education; require minimum base salary for certified professional personnel with bachelor's degrees be based upon national average living wage
## Text
House Bill 631
By: Representatives McQueen of the 61st, Herring of the 145th, Glaize of the 67th, Berry of
the 56th, and Olaleye of the 59th
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
To amend Code Section 20-2-212 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to
salary schedules for professionals in elementary and secondary education, so as to require
that the minimum base salary for certificated professional personnel with bachelor's degrees
be based upon the national average living wage as determined by the State Board of
Education; to provide for the calculation and publication of such national average living
wage at least once every three years; to provide for related matters; to provide for an
effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA:
SECTION 1.
Code Section 20-2-212 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to salary
schedules for professionals in elementary and secondary education, is amended by revising
subsection (a) as follows:
"20-2-212.
(a)(1) The State Board of Education shall establish a schedule of minimum salaries for
services rendered by teachers, administrators, and other certificated professional
personnel employed by local units of administration which shall be on a ten-month basis
and which shall be paid by local units of administration to the various classifications of
professional personnel required to be certificated by the Professional Standards
Commission. The minimum salary schedule shall provide a minimum salary base for
each classification of professional personnel required to be certificated,; shall provide for
increment increases above the minimum salary base of each classification based upon
individual experience and length of satisfactory service,; and shall include such other
uniformly applicable factors as the state board may find relevant to the establishment of
such a schedule.
(2)(A) Effective July 1, 2026, the The minimum salary base for certificated
professional personnel with a bachelor's degrees degree and no experience, when
annualized from a ten-month basis to a 12 month basis, shall be comparable to the
national average living wage as determined by the State Board of Education of the
recent graduates of the University System of Georgia holding bachelor's degrees and
entering positions, excluding professional educator teaching positions, in Georgia
having educational entry requirements comparable to the requirements for entry into
Georgia public school teaching.
(B) No less than every three years by December 1, beginning in 2026, the State Board
of Education shall:
(i) Calculate the national average living wage required under subparagraph (A) of
this paragraph utilizing research based data compiled from no less than three
nationally recognized authorities; and
(ii) Publish on the Department of Education's public website such national average
living wage along with an explanation of how such average was calculated including
all of the authorities upon which such calculation was based.
(3) The placement of teachers on the salary schedule of minimum salaries provided for
in this subsection shall be based on certificate level and years of creditable experience,
except service; provided, however, that a teacher shall not receive credit for any year of
experience in which the teacher received an unsatisfactory or ineffective annual
summative performance evaluation rating, or its equivalent, pursuant to Code
Section 20-2-210 or for the second year in which a teacher receives two consecutive
annual summative needs development ratings pursuant to Code Section 20-2-210.
(4) The General Assembly shall annually appropriate funds to implement a salary
schedule for certificated professional personnel. For each state fiscal year, the state board
shall adopt the salary schedule for which funding has been appropriated by the General
Assembly. A local unit of administration shall not pay to any full-time certificated
professional employee a salary less than that prescribed by the schedule of minimum
salaries, except as required by this Code section; nor shall a local unit of administration
pay to any part-time certificated professional employee less than a pro rata portion of the
respective salary prescribed by the schedule of minimum salaries, except as required by
this Code section.
(5) For purposes of this subsection, an educator's placement on the salary schedule shall
not be based on a leadership degree, which shall mean a degree earned in conjunction
with completion of an educator leadership preparation program approved by the
Professional Standards Commission, unless the educator is employed in a leadership
position as defined by the State Board of Education, but shall be placed on the salary
schedule position attributable to the educator but for the leadership degree; provided,
however, that this shall not apply, regardless of whether or not he or she is in a leadership
position, to:
(1)(A) An educator who possessed a leadership degree prior to July 1, 2010; or
(2)(B) An educator who possessed:
(A)(i) A master's level leadership degree prior to July 1, 2012;
(B)(ii) An education specialist level leadership degree prior to July 1, 2013; or
(C)(iii) A doctoral level leadership degree prior to July 1, 2014, so long as he or she
was enrolled in such leadership preparation program on or before April 1, 2009."
SECTION 2.
This Act shall become effective on July 1, 2025.
SECTION 3.
All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this Act are repealed.
## Summaries written by Georgia Commons
The following was written by claude-sonnet-5 from the text above and is not part of the bill. Quote the text, not the summary.
House Bill 631 would tie the minimum starting salary for Georgia teachers with bachelor's degrees to a national average living wage, recalculated by the State Board of Education at least every three years.
### Plain-language summary
Georgia law currently lets the State Board of Education set minimum salary schedules for certified teachers and other school staff, but the starting minimum for those with bachelor's degrees is not tied to any specific outside benchmark. This bill changes that by requiring the minimum base salary for certificated personnel with a bachelor's degree and no experience, when converted from the current ten-month school year basis to a full 12-month basis, to be comparable to a 'national average living wage.'
That wage figure would be based on what recent University System of Georgia graduates with bachelor's degrees earn in non-teaching jobs with similar entry requirements. The State Board of Education must calculate this figure using data from at least three nationally recognized sources and publish it, along with its methodology, on the Department of Education's website at least once every three years, starting by December 1, 2026. The new salary requirement itself takes effect July 1, 2026, while the rest of the Act takes effect July 1, 2025.
### What it does
- Requires the minimum base salary for certificated school personnel with a bachelor's degree and no experience to match a 'national average living wage' once fully annualized, starting July 1, 2026.
- Directs the State Board of Education to define that living wage using pay data for University System of Georgia graduates entering comparable non-teaching jobs.
- Requires the State Board to recalculate the living wage figure at least every three years, using data from at least three nationally recognized sources, with the first calculation due by December 1, 2026.
- Requires the calculated wage and an explanation of how it was determined to be published on the Department of Education's public website.
- Leaves in place existing rules on teacher placement by certificate level and experience, including penalties for unsatisfactory performance ratings.
### Who it affects
Certified teachers, administrators, and other certificated professional personnel in Georgia's public elementary and secondary schools, especially new hires with bachelor's degrees, along with local school districts that must pay at least the new minimum and the State Board of Education, which must calculate and publish the wage figure.
### Why it matters
If enacted, entry-level teacher pay in Georgia would be linked to a benchmark drawn from non-teaching jobs held by college graduates rather than set independently by the legislature each year, which could affect how starting salaries change over time and how they compare to other professions.
### Key provisions
- Section 1 revises O.C.G.A. ยง 20-2-212(a)(2)(A) to require that, effective July 1, 2026, the minimum salary base for bachelor's-degree holders with no experience be comparable to the national average living wage when annualized to 12 months.
- The living wage is defined by reference to pay for recent University System of Georgia bachelor's degree graduates in non-teaching jobs with comparable entry requirements to public school teaching.
- The State Board of Education must calculate this figure at least every three years by December 1, starting in 2026, using data from at least three nationally recognized authorities.
- The State Board must publish the calculated wage and its methodology, including the data sources used, on the Department of Education's public website.
- Existing provisions on salary schedule funding, teacher placement by experience, and exceptions for leadership degrees remain largely unchanged.
- Section 2 sets the effective date of the Act itself as July 1, 2025, while the salary requirement in Section 1 takes effect July 1, 2026.
- Section 3 repeals any conflicting laws.
## Status
- Status: Introduced (2025-02-26)
- Last action: House Second Readers (2025-02-28)
- Sponsors: Mekyah McQueen, Tangie Herring, Lydia Glaize, Bryce Berry, Phil Olaleye
- Official page: https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/70808
> The history, votes, and amendments (129 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb631.md?full=1