DALLAS — Most of the highest-paid superintendents in North Texas don't work for school districts with the highest number of students, according to salary data obtained by WFAA.
The discrepancy is one of several conclusions to be drawn from state-wide superintendent salary data for what superintendents were slated to make at the start of the 2023-2024 academic year -- a set that also showed that, of the top ten highest-paid superintendents in the state, only two work in North Texas.
Compensation and benefits packages for superintendents are put together by school board members, who are elected by voters. Superintendents are hired and fired by an elected school board of trustees.
Texas Association of School Boards conducts its own statewide salary survey to arm school boards with information when looking to attract and hire qualified school superintendents, according to a press release from the organization.
"Of all the responsibilities entrusted to school board members, among the most important is hiring and evaluating a superintendent," Amy Campbell, director of TASB HR Services, which administers the survey, said.
Student enrollment, staff size, geography and experience all factor into a school board's compensation offer to superintendent candidates, said George Kazanas, officer for Field Services and Executive Search Services with TASB.
School board trustees "have to rely on a lot of different data points in order to make a fair and marketable salary offer to their candidate," Kazanas said.
The median tenure for superintendents in Texas is about three years, the survey found, meaning school boards are fairly regularly engaging in the process of recruiting and negotiating salaries with superintendent candidates. Despite this, over half of the superintendents hired last year in Texas -- a full 68% of them -- had no previous experience in the position, the survey findings showed.
When superintendents decide to move to a new district or seek a promotion to a superintendent role, money is of course a factor. But those candidates are also typically seeking a community that fits their family's needs and a district with a good reputation that may help them advance their career, Kazanas said.
"It is a politically charged job at times... that can also contribute to the notion of superintendent tenure," Kazanas said.
Superintendent salary data obtained by WFAA shows that while superintendent salaries fell generally in line with the number of pupils enrolled in the district, there were a few significant outliers.
Garland ISD stands out on the far right side of the graph, paying its superintendent, Ricardo Lopez, over $444,000. One other outlier is Duncanville, which had enrollment of around 11,000 last school year but paid out the second-most money in the area to their superintendent, T. Lamar Goree.
When school districts pay their superintendent proportionally more than schools in their area with larger numbers of enrolled students, Kazanas said the school board is typically looking to accomplish one of two goals: Trustees may be working to ensure that the superintendent stays with the district long-term or to attract a superintendent with lots of prior leadership experience.
"It's generally tied to the fact that an individual has years of experience as a superintendent as well as years of experience in that particular district, so it's used to entice the superintendent to stay," Kazanas said. "You're not necessarily able to compare apples to apples all the time."
Some of the smaller school districts on the lower end of the spectrum employ a part-time superintendent or pay little or nothing to their superintendent.
North Texas superintendents as a whole earned slightly less than the statewide median salary last school year, according to data obtained by WFAA. However, several North Texas superintendents landed among the top ten highest paid, including those for Garland and Duncanville ISDs.
Garland, which has the fifth-highest number of students enrolled in North Texas districts, paid its superintendent the fourth-most in the state, $444,124. That salary is topped only by Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Barbers Hill ISD in Harris County and Ysleta ISD in El Paso County.
Of the lowest-paid full-time superintendents, only one was located in North Texas: Ron Young, of the open-enrollment charter school Academy of Dallas.
Who are the highest-paid superintendents in North Texas?
Of the school districts with the top ten highest-paid superintendents in North Texas, only two are among the region's top ten highest-enrolled ISDs. Of those top ten highest-paying districts, most were located in either Dallas and Tarrant counties.
Of the lowest-paid full-time superintendents, over half still make more than six figures, according to the data. Most of these lower-paying districts are located in primarily rural counties -- a notable exception being the open enrollment charter school Academy of Dallas, which also had one of the lowest-paid superintendents in the state.
Zooming out to a statewide view, the distribution of statewide superintendent salaries also falls more or less along the lines of enrollment, with few exceptions.
