Teacher Salary Calculator

1. Pick your grade level: kindergarten, elementary, middle or high school. Leave the pay type on annual salary unless you are paid by the hour.
2. Enter your base pay, your hours per week and your weeks per year. Add other annual pay or a second offer if you have them.
3. Read your annual gross pay, the pay-period amounts and where your annual salary sits in the BLS wage table.

What each result tells you:

The first preset is an example, not a typical wage. It shows an elementary teacher paid $60,000 on a 190-day contract, which is 38 weeks. That salary is about the 34th percentile, and it works out to $1,578.95 per paid week.

A teacher salary is the gross pay a teacher earns for a contract year, before tax and deductions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports it separately for four grade levels.

The job counts and projections come from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, read on 2026-10-02. Employment is flat, yet openings are many. BLS projects about 99,400 openings a year for kindergarten and elementary teachers, 38,800 for middle school and 63,500 for high school. Most come from teachers who retire or change jobs.

All four roles typically need a bachelor degree. Public school teachers also need a state licence or certification. Private school teachers typically do not.

The four codes exclude special education teachers, career and technical education teachers and short-term substitutes. BLS counts those in other codes that this page does not use.

This tool is for teachers checking an offer, a move between districts or a change of grade level. It is not a pay quote, and it does not replace a district pay scale.

The calculator converts your pay between time periods, then places your annual base salary in the BLS annual wage distribution for school teachers.

1. Convert. A salary is divided by your hours and weeks to get pay per paid hour. An hourly rate is multiplied by them.
2. Add other pay. Stipends and summer pay you typed are added to the annual total only.
3. Find the band. Your annual base pay is checked against the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile annual wages.
4. Interpolate. W1 and W2 are the two BLS wages around your salary. P1 and P2 are their percentiles.
5. Measure the gap. Your salary minus the median, then divided by the median.

BLS publishes no hourly wage for teachers. Its technical notes say employers report annual rates for occupations that are paid by the year but do not work 2,080 hours, and they name teachers as the example. Dividing a teacher salary by 2,080 would understate the hourly rate. This page therefore compares annual salary with annual salary.

The table below is the elementary school table, which the tool loads first. Switch the grade level to load another table.

Source: BLS OEWS, national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

An elementary teacher has a contract salary of $60,000. The contract covers 190 days, which is 190 / 5 = 38 weeks, at 37.5 hours a week. She also earns $2,400 for summer school. A nearby district offers $65,000.

Her contract salary is below the national median for elementary teachers. The second offer would move her just above it. The summer school pay raises her annual total but not her percentile, because the comparison uses the contract salary.

The per-hour figure of $42.11 covers 1,425 contract hours. The same salary divided by 2,080 would show $28.85, which is not a rate she is paid at.

Grade Level

High school teachers have the highest median of the four groups. The median is $72,040 for high school, $64,370 for middle school, $63,970 for elementary and $62,680 for kindergarten.

Public or Private School

Public schools pay more at every level in the BLS data. The Occupational Outlook Handbook lists these median annual wages for May 2025.

Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, read on 2026-10-02. Local public schools employ 84% of elementary teachers and 81% of high school teachers.

State

State means differ by tens of thousands of dollars. Washington has the highest annual mean wage for elementary teachers at $97,970. It also leads for kindergarten and middle school. California leads for high school at $105,880.

The five states with the highest annual mean wage for elementary school teachers. Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

Contract Length

The contract sets the paid weeks. BLS says many teachers work a traditional 10-month school year with a 2-month summer break. Teachers on a year-round schedule typically work 9 weeks and then have 3 weeks off. That pattern is 39 working weeks in a year, because 52 x 9 / 12 = 39. A longer contract lowers pay per week at the same salary.

Extra-Duty Pay

Stipends for coaching or clubs and pay for summer school raise the annual total. BLS notes that some teachers are paid for summer programs. Enter that pay in the other annual pay field, so the comparison rests on the contract salary.

Unpaid Hours

BLS says teachers often spend evenings and weekends grading papers and preparing lessons. Those hours are outside the contract. The teacher workload hours calculator adds them up and shows pay per hour actually worked.

A high school teacher at the median earns $8,070 a year more than an elementary teacher at the median. Middle school sits $400 above elementary. Kindergarten sits $1,290 below it.

Annual wages. Source: BLS OEWS, national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

The lower ends are almost equal. The 10th percentile runs from $46,990 for kindergarten to $48,780 for high school, a spread of $1,790. The gap opens in the upper half: the 75th percentile is $92,570 for high school and $81,450 for elementary.

The mean is well above the median at every level. For elementary teachers the mean is $72,650 and the median is $63,970, a gap of $8,680. High salaries in a few states pull the mean up. The median is the better guide to typical pay.

Checking an Offer from a District

Enter the contract salary and pick the grade level. The band shows where the offer sits among teachers nationally.

Comparing Two Districts

Use the second offer field. In the third preset, a middle school offer of $63,500 against $58,000 adds $5,500 a year. It moves the salary from about the 24th to about the 46th percentile.

Choosing 10 or 12 Monthly Payments

A school-year salary can be paid in 10 or 12 monthly payments, depending on the employer. The annual amount is the same. A salary of $60,000 is $6,000 a month over 10 months or $5,000 over 12.

Turning a Salary into Hourly Pay

Enter contract hours and weeks to see pay per paid hour. For a job with a 52-week year, the salary to hourly calculator is the simpler tool.

Budgeting and Loans

The result is gross pay. Read the gross vs net income guide before you budget. Teachers with federal loans can check the teacher loan forgiveness calculator.

1. Dividing a Teacher Salary by 2,080 Hours

A 38-week contract at 37.5 hours is 1,425 paid hours, not 2,080. Dividing $60,000 by 2,080 gives $28.85. Dividing by contract hours gives $42.11.

2. Entering 52 Weeks for a School-Year Contract

The weeks field should hold paid contract weeks. With 52 weeks the per-week and per-hour figures come out too low.

3. Reading a 10-Month Paycheck as a 12-Month Salary

A monthly check of $6,000 for 10 months is $60,000 a year, not $72,000.

4. Counting Stipends in the Contract Salary

Coaching and summer pay vary from year to year. Keep them in the other pay field and compare the base salary.

5. Using the Mean as the Typical Salary

The mean for elementary teachers is $8,680 above the median. Half of teachers earn less than the median, and more than half earn less than the mean.

6. Treating the National Median as a Local Scale

The mean in Washington is $97,970 for elementary teachers. The national mean is $72,650. Your district pay scale sets your salary, not a national figure.

The conversion is exact arithmetic. The percentile is an estimate, because BLS publishes only five points of the wage distribution.

BLS wages are straight-time gross pay. They exclude overtime pay and nonproduction bonuses. Keep extra pay in the other annual pay field so the comparison rests on the base salary.

Elementary school teachers had a median annual wage of $63,970 in May 2025, according to BLS. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $47,960 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $104,340.

The mean annual wage in May 2025 was $69,370 for kindergarten teachers, $72,650 for elementary, $72,030 for middle school and $76,320 for high school teachers.

High school teachers had a median annual wage of $72,040 in May 2025. The middle half earned between $59,980 and $92,570. BLS calls this group secondary school teachers.

BLS publishes no hourly wage for teachers, because they are paid by the year and do not work a 2,080-hour year. This calculator divides your salary by your own contract hours and weeks instead.

The contract salary covers the school year. Some employers spread it over 12 monthly payments, so checks continue in summer. The annual amount is the same either way. Summer school pay is extra.

Washington has the highest annual mean wage for elementary teachers at $97,970, followed by California at $95,670. California leads for high school teachers at $105,880.

Yes, in the BLS data. Elementary teachers in local public schools had a median of $65,260 against $58,140 in private schools. For high school teachers the medians were $74,190 and $61,810.

It depends on the contract. A 190-day contract is 38 five-day weeks. BLS describes a traditional 10-month school year, which is about 43 calendar weeks including breaks. Enter the paid weeks in your own contract.

No. The four BLS codes on this page exclude special education teachers, career and technical education teachers and short-term substitutes. BLS reports those groups under separate codes.

No. BLS projects little or no change in employment from 2025 to 2035 at all four levels. It still expects many openings each year, mostly to replace teachers who leave.

Take-home pay depends on tax, pension contributions and other deductions, and this tool does not estimate them. It shows gross pay only, so every figure can be checked against your contract.

• BLS OEWS Profiles, May 2025 national estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Select 25-2012, 25-2021, 25-2022 or 25-2031. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Duties, licence, school year, pay by school type and 2025 to 2035 outlook. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Middle School Teachers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: High School Teachers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS technical notes for the May 2025 OEWS estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Explains why teachers are reported at annual rates. Read 2026-10-02.)