Principal pay remains tied to performance

Discussions over principal salary changes drew much debate during Monday’s Sampson County Board of Education meeting, ultimately leading to a denied 4-2 vote.

The topic was brought up by Superintendent Jamie King who requested to have three principals designated ‘hold harmless’ for their salaries in 2025.

“We have three principals who’s pay will be effected in 2025 based on student test scores,” King said. “Principals are the only staff members in our district effected by student test scores, and so, I’m asking the board that those staff members be held harmless so that they may keep the same salary from the previous year, this year.”

‘Hold harmless’, per reason.org, refers to “policies where a school district receives a guaranteed minimum level of funding, even if their student enrollment drops. Essentially, protecting them from significant funding reductions due to declining student numbers. It ensures a school receives at least the same amount of funding they did in a previous “base year” despite enrollment changes, often used to prevent schools in declining demographics from facing financial hardship.”

“The principles are paid from January to December based on their student test scores and annual data memberships, so the number of students enrolled in their school is what makes up the salary,” King said. “When looking at school performance grading, there’s the 80 percent for student achievement and the 20 percent for growth. A principals salary is only based on the 20 percent.”

Debate sparked afterwards as question from board member Sonya Powell who questioned why the topic was being discussed again, after settling the topic last year.

“Last year, didn’t we have this type of situation and we did not do it,” she said. “If last year we voted and talked about it and were against paying people the extra money because they did not met growth, why would we pay it this year.”

King said he felt it was unfair that only principal salaries are affected by that growth metric, which is why he pitched for ‘hold harmless’.

“They’re the only people in an entire organization whose salary changes based on student growth and student performance,” King said. “But we know that teachers are the ones who have the biggest influence on what happens with a student.”

“So, I personally, think it’s unfair to hold principal salary to a different degree than we hold anybody else,” he added. That’s why I’m bringing it to you all. If you don’t want it, you can say no, but I think it’s important that they are not the only people in our organization who’s salary is affected based on the student test scores.”

King also noted that schools who perform with scores of an A and or B, often times fail to meet growth, too.

“When we talk about growth we look to see if a student moved up or down,” King said. “If a student moved up, they exceed growth, if they stay the same they met growth and if they fall below the growth rate, then they did not met growth. And so, that takes into account all the students in the building.”

Sampson County Board of Education member Kim Schmidlin inquired to Dr. King if it was possible to have a good letter grade but not meet growth.

“Yes it is,” King answered. “That’s where a lot of educators’ concern is, with the current system. A letter Grade doesn’t necessarily show that you grew from year to year. Say you come in eighth grade, but with 11th grade knowledge, you’re going to keep that A student status for years so you might not grow.

He continued to explain, “For example, if a student was 12th in line, and didn’t grow that year, so now you’re 14th in line, then next year you’re 16th,” King continued. “So what you see a lot of times in well performing schools is that growth isn’t happening.”

“So when you’re already at an A status, it’s more difficult to move a kid up, because if you’re number one in line, who are you going to jump to show growth,” he added.

With that in mind, Schmidlin also noted she felt it was unfair to punish principals with salary loss for performing well but not meeting growth, suggesting they come up with a plan for compensation.

“I do think that it’s unfair that a principal could loses $10,000 for not meeting growth one year if they had an A or B school,” Schmidlin said. “To me that shows that there is a certainly a level of performance there. So it just seems to me that we should be able to come up with some rubric that allows us to supplement, or provide a stipend so a principal doesn’t lose pay if they have shown school performance.

“I know I wouldn’t want my salary going down one year over things that I really can’t 100 percent control,” she continued. “Obviously, I don’t know about all three of these principals, but there are times when a school does perform well, and the principal of that school is being penalized for doing well.

Schmidlin added, “And so, if you have a school that’s a D school that meets growth, they’re getting something. But then, you potentially have schools that’s an A or B School getting nothing.”

King confirmed that situations such as those do occur, which Schmidlin reiterated they she believed they should do something to aid such principals.

“In that case, I do think that there should be some sort of lever that says, yes, in these circumstances, we will provide a portion or make up what you lost, because that’s not a school that didn’t perform,” she said.

Powell chimed in once more, referencing the boards’ action on the topic from last year, which she believed was the motion going forward regarding principal pay.

“Last year, we had some principles that do not need growth and the state changed their salary, and we let them stay with the state salary, we did not reimburse them or give them the extra that they lost,” she said. “So I’m sort of confused, because I thought once we did that last year, that we had set the precedent that we were going to let the state say what they’re supposed to get and we were not going in to change the salaries.

“Not meeting growth, that does not change what everybody gets or at least what they’re supposed to make in base pay,” she added. “The state doesn’t take away their base salary, they might take away what they got extra for meeting growth but they still get their base salary regardless.”

Board member Glenn Faison add in that he thought it was unwise to approve the hold harmless as they received calls about the decision to not approve it last year. He noted the criticism they could face from saying yes now after just voting no the year before. Jennifer Naylor, board member, also stated her dissatisfaction with how the state operates principal pay basing only on the 20 percent growth rate and was in favor of finding a way to help cover principal losses coming from not meeting growth.

The annualized costs to keep the three principals at their current pay of $33,292.39 would come out of local school funds, had the board adopted the motion.

As discussions concluded, Board Chair Daryll Warren said a motion was required from the board to resolve the matter. The motion was put forth by Schmidlin and second by Naylor, however, the overall vote denied the motion as the other members vote the opposite, the verdict 4-2 against.