COVID relief aid could save NC principals from $18,000 pay cuts this year

State Superintendent Catherine Truitt announced a plan Wednesday to use federal COVID-19 relief money to help protect hundreds of principals from deep pay cuts this year.

Truitt said 15% of North Carolina’s principals could lose $7,200 to $18,000 in pay over a full year due to a change in how state lawmakers are calculating compensation. Truitt wants the State Board of Education to use federal COVID-19 aid to cover any pay that those 360 principals would lose this upcoming school year.

“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 a statement.

“We are thrilled that we can hold our principals harmless given the incredibly challenging and extenuating circumstances that the pandemic brought into our schools. Their paychecks certainly shouldn’t be dictated by the uncertainty they absorbed and yet heroically managed through the 2021-22 school year.”

Truitt said the State Board will vote on the plan on Sept. 1.

Pandemic impact on pay

Since 2017, the state has paid principals based on how many students are at their school and whether their school’s test scores met or exceeded growth expectations. That replaced a system in which principals were paid based mainly on their years of educational experience and whether they had advanced degrees.

The new state budget changed how salaries for principals are determined to now use just one year of student test data instead of looking at three years of performance. The change is supposed to go into effect Jan. 1.

But many principals and groups such as the North Carolina Association of School Administrators said it would be unfair to cut pay based solely on the 2021-22 school year when schools were still dealing with the effects of the pandemic.

Truitt said that the legislature’s change will help people who became principals within the last three years. Previously, principals had to wait until they had multiple years of data before they could get extra pay based on the test scores.

But at the same time, Truitt said she didn’t want to negatively impact any principals. She said the use of federal Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) III dollars will hold principals harmless from the impact of COVID-19 and help ensure that they are retained by their school district.

Truitt estimated the cost at $4.5 million.

Principals back hold-harmless plan

Patrick Greene, the 2022 North Carolina Principal of the Year, has been lobbying the Republican-led General Assembly to pass legislation before the end of the year to hold principals harmless. But a spokesperson for Senate leader Phil Berger has defended the change and said there are no plans to adopt a hold-harmless provision.

Truitt, a Republican, said acting now by using the COVID-19 dollars will provide principals stability.

Greene, who is the principal of Greene Central High School in Greene County, thanked Truitt for the plan.

“Principals throughout our state successfully led their schools to higher growth performance before the COVID shutdown took students out of our schools,” Greene said in a statement. “I’m relieved to know that some of the principals who would have been impacted by this change will soon have clarity and certainty.

Some lawmakers have questioned why the state Department of Public Instruction, state board and local school districts haven’t spent more of the $6.2 billion in COVID education relief aid given to North Carolina.

But Truitt said Wednesday that it’s due to the “careful decisions” made by DPI and the state board that they have the money to help principals.

“It’s because of those early decisions that we are able to bring forward a plan that ensures no principal’s pay is negatively affected as a result of a period of time when schools and students were doing their best, and principals were leading with resiliency and resolve to help their students and teachers recover from the pandemic,” Truitt said.