Jackson Free Press

The Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees is considering whether to drop a district requirement that principals be the highest-paid employees at JPS schools. The revised policy could come up for a vote as early as the board's next meeting May 3, board member George Schimmel said.

"What occurs occasionally is there will be a teacher in a school who may have 20 or 25 years of experience and, as a result, has gone up the salary scale fairly significantly," Schimmel said. "The district may be moving in a much younger principal who otherwise would have a much lower salary, except for that one teacher who happens to be at the high end. By policy now, the district has to increase that principal's salary to make sure that it at least matches the salary of that teacher at the top end."

Schimmel said that such salary adjustments--either from the arrival of a new, relatively lower-paid principal, or from hiring a veteran, highly paid teacher--have taken place at least twice since he joined the board in 2010.

Several principals have raised concerns about the proposed policy, however, and the board is not likely to rush a vote until it addresses those concerns, Schimmel said.

"It hasn't been explained very well," he acknowledged. "It's not a desire by the district to essentially lower principals' salaries. It's to address those circumstances where one is either moving a principal or a teacher into a school with a relatively young principal who hasn't risen that high on the salary scale."

The district's pay policy was originally a requirement for accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, said Michael Waldrop, executive director of the Mississippi School Boards Association. SACS has since dropped that requirement, but it still recommends ensuring that principals are the highest-paid employees at a school, he said. The communications office for SACS did not immediately return a call for comment.

Waldrop said that he was unaware of any other Mississippi school districts seeking to drop the higher-pay requirement for principals. Mandating higher pay for principals could be a way of recognizing the larger time commitment that most principals' contracts demand, he said. Most principals work through the summer, and their duties extend to things like extracurricular activities where teachers are exempt.

"I think there are pros and cons on both sides of it," Waldrop said. "You certainly want to recruit the best possible teachers, and to do that you're going to have to pay very competitive salaries. But you also want to recruit the best possible leaders in these schools, and those leaders deal with multiple tasks."