Proposal to change how NC principals are paid includes accounting for 'complex' school factors

The state House Select Committee on Education Reform met Monday afternoon to discuss principal compensation in North Carolina.

Education officials are advocating for more complex school factors to be accounted for in the pay plan. 

Currently, the only two factors that impact what principals in North Carolina make are the average daily membership of a school, which is essentially the school’s size, and growth, which has to do with student testing improvement. 

Ashley Faulkenberry was the 2023 Southeast Regional Principal of the Year. At the committee meeting on Monday, she explained that those factors alone fail to acknowledge the differences between schools with varying levels of poverty. 

“Principals who serve more complex schools have unique challenges to overcome to accomplish similar results to schools located in more affluent areas across the state," Faulkenberry said. 

She proposed the addition of complexity factors, which take into account a school’s population of multilingual learners, students experiencing homelessness, and exceptional children to name a few. 

The committee will meet again on March 25.

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.