Arkansas teacher salary: the 2026-27 state minimum, district pay schedules and special education pay

1. The Arkansas minimum teacher salary: $50,000 under the LEARNS Act

Arkansas Code § 6-17-2403 sets the state minimum. Since the 2023-24 school year, it has said that the board of directors in each public school district and open-enrollment public charter school “shall pay classroom teachers a minimum base salary of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000)”. The LEARNS Act (Act 237 of 2023, approved March 8, 2023) wrote the $50,000 into the law, and Act 850 of 2023 (approved April 13, 2023) re-enacted the whole section to add open-enrollment public charter schools. DESE’s memo to districts put it this way: “Beginning July 1, 2023, each school district in the state shall pay classroom teachers a minimum base salary of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000).”

For 2026-27. As we read the acts the Legislature has passed since 2023, the minimum is still $50,000. The only other act that amends the section is Act 165 of 2025, which re-enacted two of its subdivisions to correct reference errors (adding open-enrollment public charter schools to their wording) and makes “only technical, not substantive, changes”. We found no act that changes the $50,000 amount. We read the acts as passed, not the online Arkansas Code. The state’s 2026-27 Public School Fund appropriation (Act 157 of the 2026 Fiscal Session, approved May 1, 2026) still includes the minimum salary program, in the line “MINIMUM TEACHER SALARY AND RAISES”. DESE’s May 21, 2026 memo on 2026-27 salary funding lists § 6-17-2403 among its legal authority.

A minimum, not a cap. The $50,000 is a floor. Subsection (g) of the same section adds, in our words, that nothing in it limits a district or charter school from creating its own salary schedule. Many districts pay more (section 4).

2. Who the state minimum covers

The minimum covers classroom teachers of Arkansas’s public school districts and open-enrollment public charter schools. The section also sets out who counts. In our words:

• Who is a teacher: for the section’s salary requirements, subsection (d) defines a teacher as someone employed by an Arkansas public school or open-enrollment public charter school in a full-time position that requires a valid Arkansas teaching license, including principals and assistant principals, unless the school has been issued a waiver by the State Board of Education.
• Adult education: subsection (e) says the minimum teacher compensation requirements do not apply to part-time teachers or part-time paraprofessionals who work in an adult education program. Their schedule is set by the Adult Education Section and approved by the Director of the Division of Workforce Services.
• A district schedule is a condition of the state money: to be eligible for the state funds that pay for the minimum, each district and charter school must meet several conditions the section lists, among them that it “Adopt an employee salary schedule.”

3. Arkansas teacher pay schedules are set by each district

Before the LEARNS Act, § 6-17-2403 set a statewide minimum salary schedule by degree and years of experience. For 2022-23, that schedule started at $36,000 for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and $40,650 with a master’s degree, at 0 years. The Legislature’s Bureau of Legislative Research (BLR) sums up the change in its 2024 salary report: “Beginning with the 2023-2024 school year, the LEARNS Act established a minimum teacher salary of $50,000 for classroom teachers, and removed the minimum salary schedule from Ark. Code Ann. § 6-17-2403.”

Each district still has a schedule of its own. The same BLR report notes that “public school districts still publish salary schedules per Ark. Code Ann. § 6-17-201.” DESE gathers them in its Teacher Salary Schedule Analysis, posted on its Salary Reports page. The latest is for 2025-26, posted Dec. 5, 2025. DESE had not posted one for 2026-27 when we checked on Oct. 13, 2026.

DESE’s file says its data come from the salary schedules districts post on their websites under § 6-17-201 and § 6-17-2301. For each district and open-enrollment charter school it lists six amounts: the bachelor’s degree salary at 0 years, 15 years and the top of the schedule; the master’s degree salary at 0 and 15 years; and the top of the schedule for the highest degree. Open the 2025-26 file to find your district. For every step in between, see the schedule your district posts on its website.

4. Arkansas teacher salary by district: DESE’s 2025-26 analysis

We counted the rows of DESE’s 2025-26 and 2024-25 files. These counts are our arithmetic, not totals DESE publishes. Here, the starting salary is DESE’s bachelor’s degree, 0 years column.

In the 2025-26 file, no district or charter school is below $50,000 in any column. For 24 of the 255, every amount DESE lists, from the starting salary to the top of the schedule for the highest degree, is $50,000. The highest top-of-schedule amount for the highest degree is $88,077.

BLR’s 2026 report agrees with our 2024-25 count: “Nineteen districts provided salaries higher than the minimum required by law.” For charter schools: “Four charters provided salaries higher than the minimum required by law.”

The district and charter counts are ours too: DESE’s file does not label them, so we counted the rows with an LEA code ending in 700 and no county as open-enrollment charter schools.

5. The LEARNS Act $2,000 raise applied to 2023-24 only

The LEARNS Act also set a one-year raise rule. § 6-17-2403(b)(1) says: “For the 2023-2024 school year, each teacher shall be paid a salary that is at least two thousand dollars ($2,000) greater than his or her current salary as of September 1, 2022.” BLR’s 2026 report describes it the same way: the law “required that all teachers receive a pay increase of at least $2,000 over the salary they received as of September 1, 2022, for the 2023-24 school year.”

As we read the law, that rule named one school year. We found no provision requiring a $2,000 raise, or any set raise, for 2024-25, 2025-26 or 2026-27.

6. Average teacher salary in Arkansas (DESE and the Legislature)

Two official sources report average teacher pay in Arkansas. They count the same kinds of licensed staff, but they count full-time equivalents differently, and BLR’s statewide figure also includes charter schools, so each figure below names its source. These are averages of actual pay, not the state minimum.

DESE’s Annual Statistical Report

DESE’s Annual Statistical Report gives the average salary of “Non-Federal Licensed Classroom FTEs”. Its definitions describe that group as “The number of K-12 licensed personnel employed by the district as K-12 classroom teachers, librarians, counselors, psychologists, and other K-12 licensed, non-administrative employees and paid from the Teacher Salary Fund.” They add: “Licensed employees paid from federal funds are not included.” BLR’s description of the report’s method notes: “The ‘salaries’ include bonuses and extra-duty pay.”

The district figures are from the report’s State District Totals page, which “does not include information for Charter schools or Education Service Cooperatives”; the charter figures are from its Charter Totals page (2024-25 report, 2023-24 report). The report does not give a separate average for special education teachers.

The Legislature’s 2026 teacher salary report

BLR’s June 1, 2026 report, Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Salaries, says: “In 2025, the average teacher salary for all public school types in Arkansas was $60,254.” BLR names each school year by the year it ends, so its 2025 is the 2024-25 school year. BLR says its approach “is similar to the Arkansas Department of Education’s Annual Statistical Report (ASR) but differs in how FTEs are calculated.” Like DESE’s figure, BLR’s average includes licensed student support staff, librarians and bonuses. Its report shows a classroom-teachers-only measure separately, to show “the effects of eliminating licensed student support and librarians paid from the Teacher Salary Fund and eliminating bonus payments.”

BLR’s charter school averages are left out here, because two exhibits on the same page of its report give different charter figures for 2024-25.

7. Arkansas special education teacher salary

Arkansas’s minimum-salary law does not mention special education: § 6-17-2403, as re-enacted by Act 850 of 2023, sets one minimum for all classroom teachers. We found no act or DESE rule from 2023 to 2026 that sets a higher salary, a pay differential or an across-the-board stipend for special education teachers. That is the result of our search of the acts and rules, not a statement from the state. This guide does not cover district-level stipends; your district’s posted salary schedule shows what it pays.

State programs that reach some special education teachers include these two, each with its own conditions:

• Merit pay: the Merit Teacher Incentive Fund’s $2,500 subject shortage award, which in the 2026 award cycle listed special education (section 8).
• A stipend for vision and hearing specialists: DESE’s Office of Special Education offers stipends to educators who become licensed as a Special Education Vision or Hearing Specialist. Its memo says: “For FY26, the stipend amount will be $6,765.00.” and “This program will be funded solely with federal funds.” Under the program rules, in our words, an applicant completes one of four named programs at Texas Tech University, Stephen F. Austin State University or Texas Woman’s University with grades of B or better, is licensed by DESE as a Special Education - Visual Specialist (K-12) or Hearing Specialist (K-12), and works one full school year directly with those students for an Arkansas public school district or education service cooperative. Time worked under a provisional license, temporary teaching license or ALP designation does not count, and educators who already received DESE reimbursement or stipend funds for this coursework are not eligible. “The total number of stipends an applicant can receive is three.” The memo adds: “The total stipend amount is not to exceed the total credit hour cost of the program.” The program rules say: “Stipends are contingent upon available funds.” FY26 applications were due before July 31, 2026, and the rules say DESE announces each year’s amount by Commissioner’s Memo in January.

8. Arkansas teacher merit pay

The Merit Teacher Incentive Fund was created by the LEARNS Act. DESE says: “Through this program, eligible teachers can earn up to $10,000 annually.” It is not a raise for every teacher: “Merit pay is awarded to teachers who meet the required eligibility criteria and qualify in at least one merit pay category.”

DESE’s categories and awards for the 2026 award cycle (the 2025-26 school year):

DESE notes: “Only one student growth bonus is awarded per teacher based on the highest eligible level.” For the 2026 cycle, DESE reports 4,857 recipients and an average bonus of $3,272.

Who is eligible. DESE’s eligibility rules for that cycle include: “The teacher should hold a standard or provisional Arkansas Teaching License.” and “The teacher must also have three complete years of teaching experience entering the 2025-2026 school year.” In our words, the rules also say the teacher must spend at least 70% of contracted time working directly with students in a classroom setting (school counselors and library media specialists also count). The teacher must also show student growth with an effective or higher annual rating (or, without three years of growth data, a highly effective rating and supporting artifacts). And the teacher must complete the required observations and not be in intensive support status. DESE’s merit pay FAQ adds: “Teachers with a growth score below 0.80 are not eligible for merit incentive bonuses, regardless of subject-area designation.” Payment is not automatic: “The number of eligible teachers may exceed the funding allotted for the program or thresholds for growth.”

DESE had not published rules for the next award cycle when we checked on Oct. 13, 2026. We also found no 2026 law that gives every teacher a one-time payment for 2026-27.

9. What BLS reports for Arkansas special education teachers (May 2025)

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates pay by occupation in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Its May 2025 estimates for Arkansas:

BLS publishes only annual wages for these teacher occupations. Its job counts leave out the self-employed and are rounded to the nearest 10. These estimates are separate from DESE’s and BLR’s averages in section 6. BLS’s rows are special education teachers only, by grade level; those averages cover licensed staff of every subject and grade paid from the Teacher Salary Fund, including librarians and counselors.