This is the first volume in a three-volume series that makes up the complete report on salaries and wages in the public schools in 1974-75. This volume reports salaries scheduled for professional personnel by school systems in the 1974-75 school year. It reports the minimum and maximum range of the salary schedule on which personnel in each of the selected professional positions may be placed for salary purposes. In practice, however, it may be that no person is actually paid either at the minimum or maximum steps of the scale. The survey, taken in the fall of 1974, focuses on 22 professional and 10 support positions selected to represent the full scope of public school employment. These positions are filled by people such as superintendents, central office administrators, principals, classroom teachers, teacher aides, secretaries, clerks, custodians, and bus drivers. The sample, randomly-selected from all public school systems enrolling 300 or more pupils, was stratified to provide data for small and very small school systems as well as for medium and large systems. The 729 responding school systems reported salary and wage data covering more than 1.1 million employees--approximately one-third of all persons employed by the nation's public schools in 1974-75. (Author/DN)