Truitt proposes using COVID funds to help some NC principals facing $7,200 to $18,000 pay cuts

The North Carolina State Board of Education is expected to vote next week on whether to use $4.5 million in federal pandemic relief dollars to compensate principals who may lose thousands of dollars this year in typical pay because of a law change.

The projected compensation reduction is a reflection of last year’s student test scores — to be released publicly Sept. 1 — appearing to be far lower than usually projected.

The North Carolina State Board of Education would vote Sept. 1 on Superintendent Catherine Truitt’s proposal to use $4.5 million to make up for any pay cuts principals at once high-performing schools may suffer as a result of the state’s most recent budget.

Principals have been expressing concern about the law change since learning of it earlier this summer. Last week, North Carolina Association of School Administrators Executive Director Katherine Joyce urged lawmakers, to change the law, out of concern that some principals could lose up to $18,000 this year, compared with what they normally make.

Principals have been challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and education leaders have lamented difficulties in recruiting and retaining people in the profession and at schools.

Truitt’s proposed change will help “to ensure that they are retained by their school district,” according to a news release from her office announcing the proposal.

Truitt is making the recommendation while the General Assembly is not in session and not expected to be until December.

“Principals were given a monumental load during the pandemic, as they were tasked with leading our schools in the midst of ever-changing circumstances that included students and teachers shuffling in and out of quarantine while classrooms alternated between virtual and in-person,” Truitt said in the news release.

“Their paychecks certainly shouldn’t be dictated by the uncertainty they absorbed and yet heroically managed through the 2021-22 school year," she added.

In July, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law a Republican-led state budget for next year that based principal pay for the final six months on just one year of student tests scores instead of three. For the first six months, pay will be based on test scores from last year and the two prior years, though testing requirements were waived during those years.

Before last spring, the state has had waivers on testing that removed test-taking requirements and consequences from test results in 2021 and canceled tests in 2020. That makes last year the only one of the last three with viable test results.

It’s not clear how test scores from previous years would impact the first six months of the year.

About 360 experienced principals — roughly 15% of the principals statewide — will lose between $7,200 and $18,000 over 12 months as a result of the change, because their schools were high performers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Department of Public Instruction.

It’s not clear if the measure before the state education board next week will include any principal facing a pay cut, or only those whose schools were once high-performing.

Since 2017, principal pay in North Carolina has been based on three years of student growth scores and student population. Principals receive a set amount based on the number of students at their school — between $72,621 and $90,776 this year — and the state adds onto that amount based on a calculation of whether their students’ tested worse, better or as expected for two out of the past three years.

That calculation works like this: Statisticians take how well a school performed on tests compared to other schools, then measures that against how an algorithm predicted the school would fare in comparison to other schools. So if a principal’s students were expected to test in the 60th percentile statewide — but they tested in the 55th percentile — the principal would have a negative growth score. If the principal’s negative growth score is worse than average, they won’t earn any extra pay on top of their base pay.

Statistically, someone always has to have a negative growth score, but how many receive them varies year-to-year. This year, far more than usual at once high-performing schools will have a negative growth score, according to DPI.