Principal Salaries

Good news to end the week: Secondary school principals nationwide saw a little more green this [school] year thanks to salary indexes equal to or better than the Consumer Price Index.

That's the good word out today from the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). The average salary reported by school districts for junior high and middle school principals in 2007-08 is $91,486; for high school principals the average is $97,496. According to NASSP:

The 2007-08 average salary for senior high school principals is 4.9% higher than that for 2006–07. This compares to an increase of 2.8% for the Consumer Price Index, thus resulting in a slight gain in purchasing power—on average—for these principals. The CPI is the Department of Labor’s measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services and is often used to estimate increases in cost of living.

The Educational Research Service compiled the report, Salaries & Wages Paid Professional and Support Personnel in Public Schools. Salary tables for middle and high school principals and middle and high school assistant principals are also available on the NASSP Web site.

Time to hit the data files on the OSPI Web site to find the average principal salary here in Washington state... We'll report back when we find it!