Updated on Oct. 18 with a response from the Idaho Department of Education about administrator pay rates.
Declining interest in school leadership positions has become a concern, state superintendent Debbie Critchfield told State Board of Education trustees at a regular meeting Thursday.
There are too many deterrents to becoming a principal or superintendent, she said, and teachers are incentivized to stay where they are — they can earn more money per day in their current positions, have “less headaches” and avoid paying $12,000 for an advanced degree.
And principals don’t always want to make the jump to becoming a superintendent.
“Our state has some of the most restrictive requirements and environments around who can be superintendents,” she said.
Fact Check: Do teachers earn more per day than principals?
In a recent column, Critchfield asserted that “the difference between teacher and administrator pay for most of our districts and charters is not significant and because administrators have more contracted days, the daily pay rate is actually less.”
EdNews on Thursday requested the data behind the assertion about administrators’ daily pay rates from the Idaho Department of Education. While waiting for a response, we took a look at principal vs. teacher pay in one of the state’s largest districts, Pocatello/Chubbuck. While it is just one district, and pay comparisons differ district-by-district, it does provide a window into the pay discussion.
The IDE did not provide data but communications director Scott Graf wrote in a Friday email that the example below “is the exact type of scenario (Critchfield’s column) alludes to” and offered a clarification: “Rather than saying the daily pay rate is less, we should have used the phrase can be.”
Case study: Pocatello/Chubbuck School District
The chart below shows that it is possible in some cases for a principal to earn a lower daily rate than a teacher, especially when comparing extremes — like an inexperienced assistant principal with a master’s degree (who is at the bottom of their salary schedule) to an experienced teacher with a master’s degree (who is at the top of their salary schedule).
| Position | Salary | Working days | Daily pay rate |
| First-year elementary assistant principal with a master’s degree | $76,680 (bottom of administrator salary schedule) | 205 | $374 |
| Experienced teacher with a master’s degree | $80,084 (top of teacher salary schedule) | 190 | $421 |
| Experienced high school principal with a doctorate | $110,980 (top of administrator salary schedule) | 210 | $528 |
Critchfield also acknowledged that administrators’ responsibilities have expanded.
“For our rural, remote and charter schools, superintendents and principals wear many hats,” she wrote in a column released the morning of the board meeting. “We have administrators who drive buses, coach teams, take on recess duties and fix broken down boilers.”
And that’s in addition to more typical responsibilities like driving academic outcomes and developing school culture.
One solution could be establishing alternative routes to education leadership, much like those for teachers: “The Board has a teacher apprenticeship program going, why don’t we take a look at an administrator apprenticeship program?” Critchfield suggested at the board meeting.
The teacher apprenticeship program she cites enables candidates to become K-12 teachers without earning a Bachelor’s degree — unless they become a special education teacher, which has more stringent qualifications.
In her column, Critchfield also suggested recognizing “out-of-state certifications and competency-based learning” as ways to make education leadership roles more accessible.
To become a principal in Idaho a candidate must:
- Have a master’s degree from an accredited college or university
- Have four years of full-time teaching experience working with students from pre-K through 12th grade
- Complete a graduate study program in school administration that is approved by the State Board
- Demonstrate proficiency in conducting evaluations of instructional and pupil service staff
- Demonstrate competency in the Idaho Standards for Effective Principals
To become a superintendent in Idaho (by earning an administrator certificate with a superintendent endorsement) a candidate must:
- Have a doctorate degree or comparable education
- Have four years of full-time certificated/licensed experience working in a school
- Complete an administrative internship
- Complete a post-master’s, school superintendent program
- Receive an institutional recommendation for a superintendent endorsement
While seeming to propose that Idaho reduce the qualifications required to become a school administrator, she also said “we hold high expectations for our school leaders, and proper training and preparation will help our administrators and superintendents meet them.”
Critchfield told board members she will be discussing how to strengthen the administrator pipeline with the state’s college of education leaders, alongside discussions about how to improve teacher preparation programs. She will then present the group’s recommendations on both to the Board, though she did not provide a timeline for doing so.
Katie Russell, who oversees the Idaho School Boards Association’s superintendent search service, said there has been a decline in superintendent applicants statewide. Potential candidates are put off by “the political climate of public education” and “the added stress,” especially because a superintendency is such a public-facing role, Russell said in an interview with EdNews.
“We are listening to school board members and seeing the challenging hiring environments in our communities around the state,” Critchfield wrote. “These state requirements haven’t been comprehensively reviewed for years and I believe that Idaho can do better to prepare our aspiring leaders.”
Other board business: Budget increases are minimal as schools face enrollment plateaus and declines
Critchfield also provided trustees with an update on her proposed state budget.
Overall, it increased by about 2.6%, which she said is “on the low side” due to most school districts reporting flat or declining student enrollment numbers.
Critchfield attributed that to an influx of people new to Idaho who do not have school-aged children; to a declining birth rate, and to rising housing costs that are shifting student populations. In the Treasure Valley, for example, Boise might lose students to the more affordable Caldwell or Nampa school districts.
She also reviewed her plan for weighted funding, which would allocate more dollars for students who are more expensive to educate, including:
- Students with disabilities
- English language learners
- Economically disadvantaged students
- At-risk students; students attending alternative schools
- Students at small, rural schools
- Students who are gifted and talented.
Board President Linda Clark offered her support for the weighted funding plan: “This is incredibly wonderful. These are very sound changes that will have a real impact on districts.”
Critchfield also gave an update on the state’s allocation of the $1.25 billion secured for school facilities as part of House Bill 521. School districts are required to submit a 10-year plan to receive the dollars, and so far 78 school districts out of 115 (or 68%) have done so. All have elected to take the money as one lump sum, rather than in annual payments over a decade.
Most of those funds (80%) will be sent out by late October, and the remainder will be issued in February.
Idaho Education News data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report.
