Oklahoma teacher salary schedule 2026-27, with special education teacher pay

1. The 2026-27 Oklahoma teacher pay scale, step by step

Oklahoma’s minimum teacher salary schedule is set by state law, 70 O.S. § 18-114.15. As amended by Senate Bill 201 in 2026, it says that from the 2026-27 school year, certified personnel in the state’s public schools receive, in salary and fringe benefits together, “not less than the amounts specified in the following schedule” (section 3 explains fringe benefits). OSDE publishes the same amounts as its 2026-2027 State Minimum Teacher Salary Schedule.

Each row is a step: a number of years of experience, from 0 to 35. The amounts are yearly.

On a phone, slide the table sideways to see all five columns.

Both the law and OSDE’s sheet end the table at 35 years; neither says what applies after that.

OSDE’s sheet explains the two National Board columns: “National Board Certification columns are for teachers who applied for and/or received National Board Certification after June 30, 2013.” The statute behind them, 70 O.S. § 6-204.2 in the Legislature’s compiled Title 70 (updated through Nov. 18, 2025), words it differently: “Teachers who attain National Board certification after June 30, 2013, shall be eligible to receive the additional salary increments for National Board certification”. Teachers eligible for that section’s older National Board bonus (for certification before June 30, 2013, or an application or an Education Leadership Oklahoma selection before that date) “shall not be eligible to receive the additional salary increment”. HB 4268, a separate 2026 law, created a new yearly National Board bonus (section 2).

2. What changed for 2026-27: a $2,000 raise to the state minimum, and a National Board bonus

Senate Bill 201 rewrote the schedule’s amounts for 2026-27. The Governor approved it on May 7, 2026, and its Section 2 says: “This act shall become effective July 1, 2026.”

We compared OSDE’s 2025-26 schedule with the 2026-27 one: every one of the 180 amounts (36 steps in 5 columns) is $2,000 higher. The table shows the bachelor’s column at every fifth step; the change column is our arithmetic.

As we read SB 201, it raises the floor only. Its salary increase clauses (subsections G to I) cover only classroom instructional employees of technology center school districts, correctional teachers and vocational instructors of the Department of Corrections, and teachers of the Office of Juvenile Affairs and the State Department of Rehabilitation Services; none covers other public school teachers already paid above the new minimum. Whether your own pay went up by $2,000 depends on your district.

A $5,000 yearly bonus for National Board certified teachers

House Bill 4268, also effective July 1, 2026, created a National Board Certification Bonus Program. Its section 3 says an eligible teacher “who attains, or has attained and continues to hold, National Board certification on or after the effective date of this act shall receive an annual bonus of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00) from the State Board of Education for a five-year period subject to his or her continued employment with a public school district in this state and maintenance of National Board certification.”

An eligible teacher is “any certified teacher in any subject area or grade level who is employed by a public school district in this state”. The teacher sends proof of certification to OSDE, and the law says the bonus “shall not be included in the calculation of the teacher’s salary for purposes of meeting the district or statutory minimum salary schedule or for purposes of compensating Teachers’ Retirement System of Oklahoma contributions or benefits.” The State Board of Education is to write the program’s rules.

3. A minimum teacher salary, not a cap

The schedule is a floor. 70 O.S. § 18-114.1 says: “Boards of education of all school districts may adopt a salary schedule and increments in excess of the minimums provided in this act.” OSDE posts districts’ own schedules in one file, Oklahoma Public Schools Local Salary Schedules, 2025-2026. These are the 2025-26 district schedules, from before SB 201 raised the state minimum for 2026-27.

Years from another state or the military. SB 201’s subsection D says that “For the purpose of state salary increments and retirement, no teacher shall be granted credit for more than five (5) years of active duty in the military service”, and the same five-year limit covers out-of-state or out-of-country teaching experience. It adds: “Nothing in this section shall prohibit boards of education from crediting more years of experience on district salary schedules than those allowed for state purposes.”

Fringe benefits can count toward the minimum. The law sets the minimum in salary and fringe benefits together. Subsection B says: “When determining the minimum salary schedule, ‘fringe benefits’ shall mean all or part of retirement benefits”, leaving out two items it names: contributions made under subsection A of Section 17-108.1 (the employer’s own required contributions to the Teachers’ Retirement System of Oklahoma), and the flexible benefit allowance. If a district intends to provide retirement benefits so that a teacher’s salary would be less than the schedule amount, the district “shall be required to provide written notification to the teacher prior to his or her employment or, if already employed by the district, no later than thirty (30) days prior to the date the district elects to provide retirement benefits such that the teacher’s salary would be less than the minimum salary schedule.”

OSDE’s one-page sheet sums up fringe benefits more narrowly, as “only the employee’s share of retirement, if paid by the district.” Where the two differ, the statute is the law, as we read it.

4. Special education teacher pay: at least 5% above the district’s prevailing wage

The state minimum schedule has no separate table for special education teachers. A different law sets their pay rule, 70 O.S. § 13-110, in full: “Qualified and properly certified teachers of special education shall be paid a minimum of five percent (5%) above the prevailing wage paid teachers of children who are nondisabled in the same school district.” It was last amended in 1993.

OSDE’s 2026-27 schedule sheet words the rule differently. Under “Special Ed Teacher” it says “Minimum Salary + 5% above the prevailing wage paid teachers of children who are nondisabled in the same district”, and it adds that the rule “Also includes Resource Teachers, Education Diagnosticians, and Speech Pathologists/Therapists.”

The statute itself does not mention the state minimum or name those other roles, and it does not define the prevailing wage or say how a district works it out. As we read it, the rule measures a special education teacher’s pay against what the same district pays its other teachers, not against the state schedule. Your district can tell you how it applies the rule.

5. Who the schedule covers, and who it does not

The schedule covers “certified personnel, as defined in Section 26-103 of this title, in the public schools of this state”. Section 26-103, in the Legislature’s compiled Title 70 (updated through Nov. 18, 2025), describes certified personnel as a certified person “employed on a full-time basis to serve as a teacher” or in certain other school roles.

• Administrators and other listed positions: since 2026, subsection J says the schedule does not apply to supervisors, deans, assistant or vice principals, assistant superintendents, principals or heads of schools, heads of charter schools and other listed positions.
• Retired teachers back in an Oklahoma public school: subsection F says the schedule’s provisions “shall not apply to teachers who have entered into postretirement employment with a public school in this state and are still receiving a monthly retirement benefit.” The Teachers’ Retirement System of Oklahoma (TRS) has its own rules for working after you retire; our TRS return-to-work guide explains them.
• Charter schools: the same compiled Title 70 says charter and virtual charter schools “shall be exempt from all statutes and rules relating to schools, boards of education, and school districts”, except as the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act provides and apart from rules on health, safety, civil rights and insurance (§ 3-136). Neither § 18-114.15 nor § 13-110 says whether it applies to charter schools.

6. How much Oklahoma teachers make on average (OSDE)

OSDE’s Certified Personnel Report on Professional Staff Distribution by Job gives the average salary of Oklahoma’s public school teachers (OSDE’s teacher job classes 210, 213 and 219), with and without fringe benefits:

OSDE’s salary information page notes: “All current year data is considered preliminary until final reports are received after end of fiscal year.” These are averages of actual salaries in OSDE’s report, not the state minimum. OSDE’s report has no separate job code for special education teachers.

7. What BLS reports for Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma:

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 OSDE’s averages in section 6: BLS’s rows are special education teachers only, at public and private employers alike, while OSDE’s averages cover all public school teachers in its job classes 210, 213 and 219.