Hawaii public school teachers are getting more money than ever.

All 6,505 teachers got pay raises automatically last January 1.

More than 50 began receiving salaries of $11,638 a year. Another 634 teachers moved to $9,574.

The new salaries result from action by the 1965 legislature.

Just how much money the teacher receives depends on her training for teaching, her years in the classroom, and what she does to improve professionally.

A teacher will get a salary increase each year simply by staying on the job and doing satisfactory teaching.

These increases will be given automatically each year for eight years if the service is satisfactory.

Further increases are possible for satisfactory service but are given in cycles of three years. The salary remains the same during each three-year cycle, but increases from one three-year cycle to the next.

The teacher who "improves professionally" has two additional opportunities to increase salary.

These increases come under classification and incentives. The teacher’s classification depends on training for the job.

When hired, each teacher is placed in one of five classifications. Salaries go up with each classification.

Teachers who do not have a bachelor’s degree are in class one.

Teachers who do have a bachelor’s degree with 18 credits in education plus practice teaching are in class two.

Class three is for those who have a bachelor’s degree plus 30 credits.

A teacher who teaches three years in Hawaii in class three and has 15 additional credits is in class four.

Two years as a class four teacher in Hawaii and 15 additional credits are needed for class five.

A teacher who earns credits in such things as summer school night courses at the university may move into a higher classification, receiving the corresponding higher salary.

Those same credits may be used for higher salaries on the incentive plan. The incentive plan is the trail-blazing part of the teacher pay raise bill passed by the 1965 legislature.

Teachers in any one of the five classifications who chose the incentive plan must improve professionally, gaining five credits every three years.