NC will spend $4.5M to keep principal pay from dropping this year

Principal pay is based partly on tests scores, which dropped more than usual this year amid pandemic-caused learning disruptions.

Posted 7:38 p.m. Sep 1, 2022 — Updated 7:38 p.m. Sep 1, 2022

Emily Walkenhorst

, WRAL education reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — About 360 North Carolina principals won’t lose pay this year just because their schools didn’t post positive academic growth scores.

On Thursday, the State Board of Education approved spending $4.5 million of the state’s remaining federal pandemic relief funds to prevent principals from losing pay, calling it a “retention supplement.”

Principal pay is based on growth scores, which, essentially, are based on the difference between actual test scores and predicted tests scores for their students. Test scores dropped this year and fewer schools posted high academic growth scores.

This summer, the budget passed by the North Carolina General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper based principal pay on the results of the spring 2022 standardized tests. That’s different from the previous method — established only in 2017 — of basing pay on three years of test scores. After more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic causing learning disruptions, Department of Public Instruction officials said last week that about 360 principals of normally well-performing schools would suddenly lose thousands of dollars in annual pay under the change.

The fix approved Thursday will only last throughout this year. Lawmakers are open to considering other changes in the winter, State Superintendent Catherine Truitt told the state education board.

Truitt said she hopes to review the current principal pay model to decide if it needs to be tweaked. She noted the potential it has to create “perverse incentives” for principals who want to avoid a dock in pay in deciding where they want to work.

“I will seek to leverage the expertise of our principals to determine whether the long session is an opportunity to revisit the entire compensation model,” Truitt said.

Board Vice Chairman Alan Duncan said he hopes to bring the summer budget change’s impact to the attention of lawmakers.

Principals will receive, on average, $12,500 of assistance after Thursday’s vote.

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