Strong leadership doesn鈥檛 always mean having the loudest voice鈥攊t鈥檚 about knowing when to step back and let others speak up.
As chief human resources officer for the 50,000-student Charleston County school system of eight districts in South Carolina since 2010, Bill Briggman repeatedly raised the issue of teacher pay during school board meetings.
鈥淚鈥檓 always going to ask until the day I walk out of the district,鈥� he told a board member in 2022, undeterred by the member鈥檚 laughter at his persistence.
But driving home that day, Briggman realized the fight for better teacher pay needed the voices of teachers.
That realization resulted later that year in the Teacher Compensation Task Force, a coalition of educators who began speaking at school board meetings to share their personal stories about how much they earn, which homes they can and can鈥檛 afford, and when they last got a raise.
The strategic shift in advocacy yielded results almost immediately.
For the 2019-2020 school year, Charleston County鈥檚 starting teacher salary was just under $40,000鈥攚ell above the state minimum of $28,000 at the time, but far below what many educators said they needed to live anywhere near their school building.
Now, starting pay is poised to jump to roughly $64,000. Veteran teachers have seen similar gains, with their salaries growing by tens of thousands of dollars, and pay increases now continue over 40 years of service instead of stagnating after less than 30 years.
Briggman, 60, doesn鈥檛 claim sole credit for these gains, acknowledging contributions from teachers, the chief financial officer, superintendent, and the school board, which has turned over almost entirely since Briggman鈥檚 advocacy began.
However, observers say Briggman鈥檚 contributions at each stage of the process were crucial. Over time, Briggman has helped his colleagues, bosses, and employees alike see raising teacher pay not merely as a way to keep workers happy and stay competitive, but to meaningfully improve the classroom experience for students.
To Briggman, the math is simple: Teachers who can comfortably live where they want and afford their bills, he says, will have more mental and emotional energy to direct toward improving children鈥檚 lives.
鈥淚鈥檝e sat in a room with other educators and other HR folks, and they all agree, we need to pay teachers more. But they end the conversation with, 鈥榃e didn鈥檛 get into education to get rich,鈥欌�� Briggman, a 2025 EdWeek Leaders To Learn From honoree, said. 鈥淚 just have to look around the room and say, 鈥榃e also didn鈥檛 go into education鈥攐ur teachers didn鈥檛鈥攖o live in poverty or not be able to buy a home in our community.鈥欌��
His advocacy emerged in the wake of the national RedForEd movement in 2018, in which educators in several states walked out of classrooms to demand more investment in public schools from lawmakers. Educators in many states have seen substantial gains since then, but teacher pay remains a headline issue in education policy, with states from to contemplating mandatory salary increases.
Henry Tran, a University of South Carolina associate professor of education leadership who teaches HR courses for education administrators, says more districts should follow Charleston鈥檚 example.
鈥淚 try to tell them, 鈥楾hink about how much money you鈥檙e losing by the constant turnover. Would it not make more sense to pay them a little more instead?鈥欌�� Tran said. 鈥淚t sounds like they did that [in Charleston], which is really impressive.鈥�
Finding drive and passion for recruiting teachers
Briggman, 60, grew up in Orangeburg, a small town roughly 50 miles south of Columbia, where his mother worked as a nurse and volunteered at the local high school. Sometimes, he鈥檇 walk into his biology class and find his mom helping.
After getting a bachelor鈥檚 degree in human relations, Briggman started managing employee benefits for a commercial real estate firm, but quickly grew disillusioned with sitting behind a desk all day.
To stay active, he started volunteering in schools and enjoyed it so much that he enrolled in a master鈥檚 degree program in higher education administration, later switching to K-12 to become a school counselor. The Charleston district hired him to help students with career paths in 1999, and he moved over to HR soon in 2004.
Early on, one particularly hectic summer with hundreds of teacher vacancies sparked his passion for recruitment.
Briggman overhauled the hiring process, empowering principals to interview candidates without prior approval from his office, using color-coded spreadsheets to track progress, and recruiting educators from midwestern states like Michigan to tap into the surging supply of newly minted educators there.
On one visit to a Hampton Inn in Ann Arbor, Mich., Briggman and his team were shocked to find dozens of job seekers lining up to attend a session. They had expected only a handful of people.
鈥淚 used to laugh and say, 鈥業 could relax in September and take a vacation,鈥� but recruitment for teachers over the last 10 years is 12 months out of the year,鈥� he said.
Building trust and momentum for change in teacher pay
During this period of widening the district鈥檚 candidate pool, Briggman began noticing issues that eventually became central to the teacher pay task force work.
In the early 2000s, Charleston emerged as an attractive destination to live and work, causing , but stayed competitive with comparable homes on the coasts of Florida or California.
Many new teachers in the district were forced to take second jobs, like bartending, to make ends meet. Briggman even debated discouraging his niece from becoming a teacher because of the financial struggles he saw.
鈥淥ne teacher said, 鈥業 can鈥檛 afford to go to my hair stylist, I have to do something, I can鈥檛 live like this,鈥欌�� Briggman recalls.
Convinced that the status quo needed to change, Briggman took on this issue as a central component of his job.
Even so, it took time to convince teachers and others in the district that he was committed.
Patrick Martin, a high school English teacher in the district, spent much of the 2010s advocating for better working conditions for his profession.
When he heard about the group that eventually became Briggman鈥檚 full-fledged task force, he was initially reluctant to get involved.
He also had reservations about working with Briggman because of the connotation of the 鈥楬R鈥� in his job title.
鈥淢y preconceived notion of HR was that it was in their best interest to get the most qualified employees for the least amount of resources,鈥� he said.
But the range of people actively participating in the meetings helped win Martin over. Briggman wanted to elevate rejoinders to the district鈥檚 status quo from educators like Martin, who was part of several groups that served as advocates for area teachers in the absence of legal public-sector unions in the state.
鈥淭o me, that all kind of spelled out, this is somebody who鈥檚 really looking at the broad picture of what it means to retain and recruit teachers,鈥� Martin said. 鈥淭hat was the first indicator that this was more than just a photo op.鈥�
Martin said he respects that Briggman built relationships across the district, including with school board members, principals, and teacher groups that were often overlooked by top leaders.
鈥淪ometimes in roles at central offices, we鈥檙e not as thoughtful about how we can continue to engage with the primary stakeholders we serve,鈥� said Anita Huggins, the district鈥檚 superintendent who has worked with Briggman for over two decades. 鈥淗e is masterful at that.鈥�
How to keep teacher salaries at the forefront
Briggman鈥檚 task force collected survey responses from the district鈥檚 3,800 teachers, followed up with discussions in small-group settings, and worked to engage as many people as possible in meetings about teacher pay.
What they saw, Briggman said, was impossible to ignore.
Briggman strategically oriented the task force solely around issues of pay, resisting attempts to shift discussions to less costly perks or one-time bonuses.
鈥淲hen a lender or an apartment complex is looking at your salary to figure out whether you can afford the rent, a $5,000 bonus does not factor in,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a one-time pot of money, it鈥檚 not a true fix.鈥�
The Charleston County schools have an advantage over some lower-wealth districts in the state with smaller tax bases, Briggman said. On the other hand, that also means salary levels that would match the cost of living in rural areas of South Carolina don鈥檛 come close to the needs of Charleston-based workers.
Sometimes, the task force members made proposals that he saw as financially unfeasible, given his administrator-level window into the district鈥檚 broader budget constraints, but he encouraged task force members to keep advocating.
When eight of the nine school board positions turned over in 2022, Briggman seized the opportunity to educate them on how the district works and what it needs鈥攊ncluding a continued focus on teacher pay.
How a bold salary overhaul keeps educators in the classroom
Striking that balance鈥攕upporting workers while prioritizing the interests of the district鈥攊s the core of successful human resources administration, Tran from the University of South Carolina said.
In South Carolina, districts must offer salaries at least as generous as the state-mandated salary schedule with 28 steps, each for a year of employment.
The schedule for this school year starts at $47,000 for first-year teachers with only a bachelor鈥檚 degree and capping at $61,000 after 28 years. However, the state doesn鈥檛 require the Charleston district to give teachers a raise once they鈥檝e passed 28 years and become eligible for the state pension. Those veteran educators have an incentive to retire early.
The result of that policy in Charleston, Briggman said, had been that the most experienced and highly effective teachers were leaving the district even though they had years鈥� worth of teaching left to offer.
Not long after Briggman鈥檚 task force formed, the school board moved to add 12 steps to the district鈥檚 pay schedule, allowing teachers to earn raises through 40 years of service.
Before the change, teachers stopped getting raises after 30 years of service, and their salaries were frozen between $62,000 and $81,000, depending on their experience level.
Now, 30 years of experience in Charleston nets teachers between $85,513 and $107,142. By the time they鈥檝e served for 40 years, those salaries will grow to between $96,767 and $121,726.
No other district in the state offers annual increases that far into a teacher鈥檚 career. Only 12 of the state鈥檚 other roughly 80 public school districts have a step schedule that extends past 30 years.
The Charleston school board even applied the step schedule retroactively to the first day of the teacher鈥檚 contract. That meant long-serving Charleston teachers got a catch-up check worth thousands of dollars.
This year, Briggman and the committee focused on boosting early-career teacher salaries and improving pay schedules for other types of employees, like teacher assistants.
Karen Lockerman, a special education teacher at Minnie Hughes Elementary School in Charleston, appreciates that her recent pay increases haven鈥檛 been accompanied by tax increases, and that the paraprofessionals who do essential work for her students haven鈥檛 been left behind.
鈥淚s this enough to live in our area without having to have another job or a roommate?鈥� she said. At least for her, 鈥渢he answer is still not yet, even with the increase. But it鈥檚 better and moving [in] the right direction.鈥�
A few years ago, before the task force鈥檚 work bore fruit, Briggman had begun contemplating retirement. Now, he鈥檚 as energized as ever.
鈥淚 told the committee, if this is one of the last things I do before I leave the district, it is going to be to get teacher pay up,鈥� he said.
