Kansas teacher salary: KSDE’s average teacher pay, how district pay is set and special education pay by area

1. Kansas teacher salary schedules and pay scales: how district pay is set

We found no statewide minimum salary or salary schedule for school-district teachers in the Kansas school statutes we read. That is a search of the section titles in Chapter 72 (Schools) of the Kansas statutes, not of every section’s text.

Under Kansas’s Professional Negotiations Act, when a school board has recognized a teachers’ organization, salaries are a required topic of their negotiations (K.S.A. 72-2228). K.S.A. 72-2228(b)(1) says: “Upon entering negotiations pursuant to this section, the parties shall negotiate compensation of professional employees and hours and amounts of work.” For that section, the statute adds that “the term ‘compensation’ means salary and wages, supplemental contract salaries and pay for overtime.” The statute makes an exception for a first agreement: “The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to negotiations between a board of education and a professional employees’ organization negotiating for the purpose of reaching their first agreement.”

As we read these sources, a teacher’s salary schedule or pay scale is the school district’s own, so this guide does not list one. Pay differs from district to district: KSDE’s salary report points to a wide range in teaching experience and college hours of personnel, and in budget per pupil, “which may account for disparities in salaries between school districts.”

2. How much do teachers make in Kansas? KSDE’s 2025-26 average teacher salary

KSDE’s Teacher Salaries 2025-2026 report gives the average salaries for teachers in Kansas’s school districts; how much Kansas teachers make in any one district can differ from these statewide averages (section 3). Its 2025-26 figures are contracted amounts:

Who is counted. KSDE’s glossary, under FTE (its count of full-time-equivalent teachers), says: “Includes classroom teachers and certified employees in non-administrative positions, including library media specialists and school counselors, who are paid under a salary schedule.” These are all teachers in Kansas school districts, not only special education teachers. KSDE publishes no salary figure for special education teachers alone; for their pay, see BLS’s figures in section 6.

What the average salary includes. For the current year’s contracted salaries, the glossary says: “Teachers’ regular salaries including benefits received under a Section 125 Salary Reduction Agreement.” It adds: “Excludes board paid fringe benefits, supplemental salaries, social security, workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance.” Supplemental salaries, in KSDE’s description, are paid for activities outside the scheduled teaching hours, such as coaching, sponsoring school clubs and teaching summer school; KSDE reports them, and board-paid fringe benefits, in their own columns.

KSDE’s estimated change. KSDE’s glossary defines its percent change: “Shows the estimated percent change of the current year contracted salaries over the prior year’s actual salaries including fringe benefits, supplemental and summer school salaries.” For 2025-26, that estimate is 3.23%. It compares statewide averages, so it is not a figure for any one teacher or district.

Contracted, not yet actual. KSDE marks the 2025-26 row as contracted. Its Data Central report description (section 3) says it shows “the prior year actuals and current year contracted Total Average Teacher Salary”, so a later edition may report a different, actual figure for 2025-26 (our reading). We found no 2026-27 edition of KSDE’s report.

3. Kansas teacher salary by district: KSDE’s district report

KSDE publishes average teacher salaries for each school district. Its Data Central School Finance Reports page lists a “Salary Report - Teachers” that, in KSDE’s words, “Shows the prior year actuals and current year contracted Total Average Teacher Salary, including fringe benefits and supplemental pay, then shows percent change between the two years for all districts, and state totals”. The report is built from a form on that page. We did not run it, so this guide gives no district’s figure.

A district average is not a salary schedule. KSDE points to differences in teaching experience, college hours and budget per pupil as possible reasons salaries differ between districts (section 1).

4. The National Board bonus for district teachers

Kansas law sets a bonus for National Board certified teachers in school districts. Under K.S.A. 72-2166, teachers who have attained National Board certification and “who are employed by a school district shall be paid an incentive bonus in the amount of $1,000 each school year”. The statute ties the bonus to “each school year that the teacher remains employed by a school district and retains a valid master teacher’s license”. The school district pays it and may apply to the state board of education for reimbursement (72-2166(b), (c)).

The bonus is for teachers employed by a Kansas school district; it is paid only while that employment and the master teacher’s license continue.

5. Special education teachers in Kansas school districts

Kansas school districts reported 4,383.7 full-time-equivalent (FTE) special education teachers for 2025-26, in KSDE’s Licensed Personnel for USDs 2025-2026 state totals. The table’s footnote for special education teachers says: “Report only those employed by this school district or system.” These are full-time equivalents, not a headcount.

KSDE’s Data Central describes its licensed personnel counts as “Unaudited FTE (Full Time Equivalency), as of September 20th, of Licensed Personnel for all districts, including state totals, broken down by position as reported”. As we read it, the 4,383.7 is that unaudited count; the PDF itself does not say so. We have not established whether staff employed by special education cooperatives or interlocals are all included.

6. Kansas special education teacher salary statewide (BLS, May 2025)

BLS estimates pay by occupation in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Its May 2025 estimates for Kansas’s special education teachers:

BLS counts 1,610 jobs in kindergarten and elementary, 550 in middle school and 1,650 in secondary school special education: 3,810 in the three K-12 special-education teacher occupations. Their job-weighted average wage is $60,895 (our calculation). The median annual wages are $59,970 (kindergarten and elementary), $59,780 (middle school) and $60,700 (secondary school). BLS also counts 350 preschool special education teacher jobs, 4,160 in all four occupations, and publishes no Kansas figure for “all other” special education teachers.

BLS publishes only annual wages for these teacher occupations. Its job counts are rounded to the nearest 10 and leave out the self-employed, so they count jobs, not licensed teachers. These are survey estimates for all employers in Kansas, private schools included, as of May 2025; they are not adjusted for the cost of living, and they are not what any one school district pays. They measure a different group from KSDE’s average in section 2, which covers all teachers in Kansas school districts.

7. Kansas special education teacher pay by area (BLS, May 2025)

BLS estimates pay by occupation for each metro area and for one Kansas nonmetropolitan area. The table gives the 7 metro areas whose BLS names include KS and the Kansas nonmetropolitan area, lowest first, with the area names as BLS writes them.

Areas that cross the state line. BLS’s Kansas City, MO-KS, Joplin, MO-KS and St. Joseph, MO-KS areas include Missouri counties, so their figures include Missouri workers. BLS does not publish a separate Kansas part of these areas, and their job counts are not counts of Kansas jobs alone.

How we calculated it. For each area, we took BLS’s published mean annual wages for special education teachers in kindergarten and elementary school (25-2052), middle school (25-2057) and secondary school (25-2058) and weighted each by its published job count. Where BLS did not publish a job count or a mean for one of the three in an area, we left it out. These are BLS’s May 2025 estimates (area workbook); BLS publishes these occupations as annual wages only. BLS also publishes preschool (25-2051) special education teacher figures for some areas; we left them out.

Read these with care. They are survey estimates for all employers, private schools included, as of May 2025. They are not adjusted for the cost of living, and they are not what any one school district pays. Small areas rest on few jobs: the St. Joseph, MO-KS figure covers 40 jobs and the Lawrence, KS figure 70, and both are for kindergarten and elementary school special education teachers only. We have not checked which counties BLS puts in each area. For Kansas as a whole, see section 6.