Rhea County Department of Education

What the Numbers Say About Rhea County Department of Education

Rhea County Department of Education is a small-to-mid-sized school district in Tennessee, serving 4,112 students at an estimated per-pupil spending of $12,339. Estimated average teacher salary — derived from instructional expenditure variable Z33 divided by teacher FTE — is $64,673, placing the district in the lower-spending tier of NCES F-33 respondents. NCES LEAID 4703510 references the FY2022 Common Core of Data Local Education Agency Finance Survey.

Relative to the Tennessee statewide average of $66,654, teacher pay in Rhea County Department of Education runs slightly below the state benchmark — a 3.0% gap, and below the national instructional-salary estimate of $82,292 (21.4% differential). Among enrolling districts in Tennessee, it pays more than 42% of them. Licensing reciprocity, collective bargaining strength, and state aid formulas all contribute to where a district lands in these tiers.

On the budget side, Rhea County Department of Education reports $50.7M in total expenditure against $52.6M in revenue, with instructional salaries accounting for 35% of spending — a compensation-to-budget ratio that signals how much of each tax dollar reaches classroom educators. Regular-program teacher salary outlay is $12.8M, special-education teacher pay is $1.2M. These figures are district-level aggregates from F-33, not individual contracts — step-and-column schedules, stipends, and collectively-bargained differentials sit underneath these totals.