The median pre-K teacher salary in Texas was $16.28 an hour — $33,860 a year — in the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data for May 2025, which reports the title under preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011).
Our research found no statewide pre-K salary scale for the state — no single table covering districts, partnership programs and child care centers — so the employer's posted pay is the number to find, and where a classroom sits changes the offer.
Here is what the data shows, how each setting pays, and where the jobs are posted.
The current salary scale
Start with the structural answer: our research did not find a statewide pre-K teacher salary schedule covering district, partnership or center programs in Texas.
No state table in our research converts a degree or a year of experience into a pre-K paycheck, and we found no state-published figure to look up.
That leaves the employer's posted pay as the number that applies.
What the federal data gives you instead is a statewide median.
Preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011) — the BLS occupation that contains the pre-K teacher title — earned a median of $16.28 an hour, or $33,860 a year, in Texas as of May 2025 (BLS OEWS).
A median means half of Texas preschool teachers earned more and half earned less.
A statewide median blends every setting that employs preschool teachers, so individual employers sit above and below it.
Our pre-K teacher salary in Texas page carries that state figure, and the occupation's full Texas percentile breakdown is on our preschool teacher salary in Texas page.
One more Texas row is useful as a marker.
Kindergarten teachers (SOC 25-2012) earned a median of $63,780 a year in May 2025 — BLS publishes that occupation in annual figures only, so there is no hourly median to set beside it.
The employer's schedule is the number that counts
Lead vs assistant pay
Our sources carry no "pre-K assistant teacher" line.
The closest federal proxy for assistant and aide pay is the childcare-worker occupation (SOC 39-9011): nationally, childcare workers in child care services earned a median of $16.43 an hour — $34,170 a year — in May 2025.
Both the occupation and the figure are national, so read it as the shape of center-side assistant pay rather than a Texas rate, and keep it separate from the $16.28 Texas preschool-teacher median in the section above — the two are not a measured lead-versus-assistant gap.
What our research could not verify is the actual lead-versus-assistant differential in Texas pre-K classrooms.
We have no verified matched-pair figure for the state, and our research holds no federal table that splits pre-K pay by role.
If a posting shows both titles, the difference it prints is the one that applies.
For the role behind the number — what a pre-K assistant teacher does and what programs require of one — see pre-K assistant teacher.
On pay, the credential route matters: assistants who add the education a lead spot asks for are the ones who cross over to the lead scale.
How credentials and years change pay
With no state table, the reliable link between credentials and money in Texas runs through setting.
BLS says preschool teachers typically need at least an associate degree, and that public-school preschool teachers generally need a bachelor's degree plus an early childhood license.
In center-based work, the CDA — which must be renewed every 3 years — is what BLS identifies as the credential states most often require of childcare workers who need a national credential.
Years of experience are the same story.
Each district's schedule credits experience its own way, and our research found no statewide step for center staff either, so the value of a year in the classroom is an employer question, not a state one.
Where a state does publish a schedule, the steps are public — Georgia funds its pre-K lead teachers on a state salary schedule that rises with certification level and years of service.
Our research found no Texas equivalent, which is why the district's own posted schedule is where its step values live: the Georgia Pre-K salary scale shows what a published one looks like.
School-site vs private-site pay
The big setting split in the federal data runs between school payrolls and center payrolls — and the split in our research is the national one, not a Texas one.
In May 2025, preschool teachers in elementary and secondary schools earned a median of $27.29 an hour ($56,750 a year), against $17.72 an hour ($36,850 a year) in child care services.
Our public-school pre-K teacher pay page covers that split in full, and the campaigns to close it run under the banner of pre-K pay parity.
The Texas statewide row blends every setting into the single $16.28 median, and our research holds no Texas split by setting.
What the split means in Texas is a question of who signs your contract.
A district-run pre-K classroom pays on the district's schedule, and the district's HR office is where you get it.
A center classroom pays on the center's rates.
A partnership classroom can sit on either payroll — the district's or the center's — so which employer holds the position is the first pay question to ask in an interview.
Center-side, one Texas-specific layer sits under pay: quality rating.
Texas Rising Star is the Texas Workforce Commission's quality rating and improvement system.
Child care programs serving children in TWC's Child Care Services (CCS) scholarship program have had to participate at least at Entry Level since October 2, 2022, and beyond Entry Level the system has three certification levels — Two-Star, Three-Star and Four-Star — tied to higher CCS payment rates.
None of that is a teacher pay scale: those payment rates are for children enrolled in CCS, so a center's star level tells you about its funding and quality incentives, not what it pays you.
Ask the center for its actual rates.
Calendar differences track the same split.
BLS notes many public-school preschool teachers work the traditional 10-month school year with a 2-month summer break, while preschool teachers in daycare settings may work year-round with longer hours.
An annual salary from each side of that line is not the same amount of work time — ask which calendar a position follows before comparing offers.
How to find these jobs
District pre-K openings live in each district's own hiring channels.
Since our research found no statewide scale, treat every district as its own market: get its posted salary schedule, then match your degree and years to it.
Three questions sort any district offer out fast — which schedule a pre-K opening pays on, where your credential places you on it, and how it steps with experience.
Center and partnership openings surface on job boards, including ours — browse pre-K teacher jobs on ChildcareHires.
For a partnership classroom, ask which payroll the position sits on before comparing it with a district or center room.
New to the title itself?
The pre-K teacher career guide covers the role's duties, settings and credentials before you negotiate pay.
Pre-K 4 SA sits outside the district-and-center picture this page covers: our research vault does not hold a verified Pre-K 4 SA salary figure, so the program's own job postings and HR pages are the current source our research can point to for what it pays teachers.
The national backdrop is steady: BLS projects preschool teacher employment to grow 4 percent from 2025 to 2035, with 66,700 openings a year projected — a figure BLS publishes as approximate.
Those are national projections, not a Texas-specific forecast.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Pay figures on this page are medians from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release for May 2025; employers set actual pay, so confirm current rates with the district, program or center you are dealing with.