How HISD Determines Salaries for Nurses

  • Thank you for considering Houston ISD as your choice of employer. This information is provided to help you understand how HISD determines the salary for school nurses. While the exact pay cannot be determined until you have submitted the proper supporting documentation and that documentation has been evaluated, these guidelines should give you the tools to understand how the salary is determined.

    All nurses are paid based on the HISD Teacher Salary Schedule. This schedule can also be found online at www.houstonisd.org or may be obtained from your HR Talent Coordinator. Two critical components are used to determine where you are placed on the salary scale:

    1. The number of months you will work on your assigned duty. Most school nurses work 10 months.
    2. Years of verifiable work experience as an RN.

    When considering nursing experience to satisfy the second component above, the following rules apply:

    1. All experience must be verified with supporting documentation. The types of documentation are outlined below.
    2. Experience must be as other nursing experience, including as an LVN or Nursing Assistant, will not be counted towards your years of experience for salary placement.
    3. A working year for the purpose of service credit is defined as 90 days of full-time work (8 hours per day) and only full years are awarded.
    4. In situations where there are multiple jobs at the same time (overlapping experience), the time may be combined. However, no more than one year of experience may be awarded per year. For example, two part-time jobs may be combined to equal one year of full-time experience. However, a concurrent full-time and part-time job will only be counted as one year.

    All creditable nursing experience falls under two categories: experience counted under the policies of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and experience counted under HISD local policy.

    TEA Policy

    1. TEA recognizes RN experience obtained while working in a TEA approved university hospital, a school, or the Peace Corp. Examples include M.D. Anderson Hospital or work at a public school in Work at Memorial Hermann, for example, would not count in this category.
    2. All TEA recognized experience is credited “one for one”, meaning that one year of nursing experience will equate to one year on the salary scale.

    HISD Policy

    1. HISD grants nurses one year of HISD experience for every one year of relevant non-school based RN experience.
    2. School-based experience will be credited on a basis of one (1) year for each year of validated experience.

     

    EXAMPLE:

    A nurse has worked at three institutions: MD Anderson Hospital for three years as an RN, Memorial Hermann Hospital for five years (3 as an RN, 2 as an LVN), and Jones High School for one year. In this example, seven years of service would be counted for placement on the Teacher’s Salary Scale.

     

    Institution

    Actual Years

    Credited by Whom

    Years Counted

    MD Anderson

    3

    TEA

    3

    Memorial Hermann – LVN

    2

    n/a

    0

    Memorial Hermann – RN

    3

    HISD

    3

    Jones High School

    1

    TEA

    1

    Total Years of Experience for Placement on Salary Scale:

    7


    How to Submit Documentation for Work Experience Credit:

    1. All work experience must be submitted to your HR Talent Coordinator, the person with whom you have been working to facilitate your employment.
    2. TEA approved experience (university hospital, school, or peace corps) must be submitted on an official Service Record form. By state rules, the form must be fully completed with all the requested information, including the number of days worked and the percentage of time Instructions are found on the form. By state rules, incomplete forms cannot be considered for experience credit.
    3. HISD approved experience may be submitted on employer letterhead or the official Service Record form; most people find the letterhead to be The letter must include the following information:
      1. Dates of employment
      2. Position(s) held
      3. Employment status (full-time or part-time)
    4. If your employer is no longer in business, other documentation may be submitted. Examples include W-2 forms, documentation from the Social Security Administration, etc.

    Important: These other methods of obtaining proof of experience are considered to be alternative methods and should not be used unless there is absolutely no other way to verify the experience. These documents often do not provide all the information required, so it is up to the evaluator to determine if enough information can be gleaned from the document for credit to be awarded.