If you teach in Illinois, you may have noticed that your district’s salary schedule may be different from that of a neighboring district, and options for salary increases depend on the individual school district you work in. In many districts across Illinois, earning graduate-level credits can help you increase your salary. For every 15 or 30 credits you accumulate beyond your bachelor’s degree or your master’s degree, your district could allow you to trigger a lane change on your salary schedule and add thousands of dollars to your paycheck every year. Read more in this article.

Teaching is one of the most important professions in the world. You are educating and helping to raise the next generation of citizens. You are often the first adult outside of the student’s immediate family who believes in them and pushes them to be their best selves, and you have a significant responsibility to ensure your students are successful. And yet, you are in a profession that rarely pays you what it should, based on the immense value that you provide your students.

Teachers are some of the most financially resourceful people in the workforce. You stretch classroom budgets, buy supplies out of pocket, and find ways to make things work with less. For those of you who work in a district that allows for lane changes/ salary step increases through the accumulation of graduate-level credits, you know that moving up in your salary schedule is the obvious plan to secure your financial future.