Douglas County School District salary schedule: how teachers move to a higher column

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How is the DCSD teacher salary schedule organized?

The 2026-2027 Licensed Compensation Schedule took effect July 1, 2026. It comes in three versions, and DCSD assigns every licensed job to one of them:

• General (I) for most classroom positions;
• Hard-to-Hire (II) for positions the district lists as hard to fill;
• Specialist/Extremely Hard-to-Hire (III) for the hardest-to-fill and specialist roles.

The classification appears on the job posting. All three versions share the same nine lanes, so a teacher's education places them in the same lane whichever schedule they sit on. What changes from schedule to schedule is the pay in each cell. The guide to reading a salary schedule explains how lanes and steps cross.

The step ceiling rises with the lane. A teacher who reaches the last step in a lane stays there; the higher lanes carry more steps.

New hires receive credit for up to seven years of outside experience (DCSD charter school years count as outside), which makes step 8 the highest starting step. The guide states that offers are non-negotiable. Its own worked example: a Hard-to-Hire teacher with five years of experience and a master's plus 25 graduate-level credits starts at Step 6 in MA+15, because 25 credits fill one 15-credit block and not two.

Changing jobs can cut pay even when lane and step stay put. The guide describes a psychologist at MA+60, step 6, who moves to a General third-grade position: same cell, lower schedule.

Which units count toward a DCSD column change?

The HLA instructions and the salary guide apply the same tests:

• Graduate level only. Additional undergraduate credits and second undergraduate degrees never count.
• Earned after the semester of conferral. Credits must postdate the semester in which your most recent, highest degree was conferred.
• Two accreditation checks. The institution must be regionally accredited as shown on the Colorado Department of Education's list, and it must appear on the U.S. Department of Education's DAPIP database. The transcript has to include its accreditation key.
• Quarter credits convert at 3:2. Divide quarter credits by 1.5 to get semester credits; 45 quarter credits equal 30 semester credits. See quarter vs. semester units.
• Professional development credits do not count unless a university academic transcript shows graduate-level, non-relicensure credit from a regionally accredited institution. Even then, coursework that is clearly professional development may be refused.

Degrees follow their own rules. Every master's places a teacher at MA+0, however many credit hours the program carried. Two master's degrees conferred in the same semester count as one; if they were conferred in different semesters, credits from the second program earned after the first was completed can count as MA+ credit. Dual degrees with the same conferral date register as a single degree at the higher level. The article on units that count covers how other districts draw these lines.

Does DCSD require approval before you take a course?

No pre-approval step appears in the HLA program. Review happens after the work is done, when you submit the request. In Workday, open the Personal menu, choose Personal Information (Legacy), then "Submit Licensed Horizontal Salary Advancement Request." The questionnaire offers three request types:

1. Highest Degree Change;
2. Additional Credits Beyond Current Highest Degree, where you enter the number of credits earned after your last conferral;
3. New Highest Degree and Additional Credits, for a new degree plus credits earned after it.

Upload every page of every transcript, including the key. A missing page gets the request denied. DCSD sends an e-mail saying whether the request was accepted, and an approval is followed by a new salary statement. Hold off until you have enough credits for a new lane: the instructions ask teachers not to file for a partial block. If your current pay already exceeds the new cell, there is no raise, though the district still updates your placement.

Approval is a separate question for tuition money. DCSD's Tuition Assistance Program covers pre-approved coursework; its application opens August 1 in Workday and is first-come, first-served. Lane credit itself needs no advance sign-off. Questions about either process go to the Human Resources Solutions Team.

When are transcripts due, and when does the new column take effect?

DCSD takes HLA requests all year and ties the pay date to the day you submit. The windows run from the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next:

A denied request does not hold its place. When you resubmit, the district processes it by the new date, so a missing transcript page can push the raise back a month or more. The transcript deadlines article compares this rolling setup with once-a-year cutoffs elsewhere.

Do the same units count toward Colorado license renewal?

Sometimes, but the two tests differ. Colorado renews a professional license every seven years on 90 contact hours, and the Colorado Department of Education credits a semester hour as 15 contact hours, so six semester hours cover a full renewal. DCSD's lane rules are narrower: a relicensure-only course or a professional development certificate can satisfy CDE while adding nothing to your lane. The Colorado renewal rules are on the state guide, and renewal vs. salary credit explains the split.

Where can DCSD teachers earn graduate-level units?

Every district, DCSD included, decides for itself whether a course counts for the purpose a teacher needs it for: a column move, a stipend, license renewal or an added endorsement. No provider, university or website can make that decision, so the rules above come first, and written approval from DCSD's human resources office is the safest record to have before you pay.

Douglas County's 2026-27 salary guide says professional development credits count toward salary only when a university academic transcript shows graduate-level, non-relicensure credit, and that coursework that is clearly professional development will not count toward salary advancement for 2026-27. Many continuing-education courses for teachers are sold as exactly that kind of credit, so ask Human Resources whether a specific course qualifies before you enroll.

Because DCSD screens courses and providers under its own rules, this page does not point to any one provider. Check a course against those rules and get written approval before you pay for it. Published prices for 16 providers are on Compare; check each one against DCSD's rules.

Sources

1. 2026-27 Horizontal Lane Advancement (HLA) Program Information & Instructions, Douglas County School District. Checked November 11, 2026
2. Salary Guide, Licensed Employees, 2026-27, Douglas County School District. Checked November 11, 2026
3. 2026-2027 Licensed Compensation Schedule, Douglas County School District. Checked November 11, 2026
4. Compensation, DCSD Human Resources. Checked November 11, 2026
5. Professional teacher license renewal checklist, Colorado Department of Education. Checked November 11, 2026

Reviewed November 11, 2026 by TeacherPayGuide editors.Report an error