Highest-Paying NJ Schools: See Teacher Salaries By District

NEW JERSEY — Fifteen New Jersey school districts paid their teachers a median salary of more than $100,000 last year, recent state data shows.

There were only 10 districts where teachers made that much in 2022/23, according to the latest Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending.

A teacher's salary depends on several things, including how much experience each teacher has, their own education level, staff size, and the cost of living around the district. The median teacher salary last school year was $81,927, up from $77,943 in 2022/23 and $74,175 in 2021/22.

Four of the five top-paying school districts are in North Jersey, the data shows. The highest-paying district is once again Northern Valley Regional High School District in Bergen County, where teachers make a median salary of $119,285.

Teachers at the lowest-paying districts make less than half of that. At Bridgeton Public Charter School, a small K-4 school in Cumberland County, teachers had a median salary of $50,235.

Salaries also vary depending on what grade levels each educator is working with, and by the type of school they work in. For instance, Patch took a look at the data and found that charter school teachers had the lowest median salaries last year: $68,438. Teachers at high school buildings – both 7-12 and 9-12 – had the highest, at $84,240.

Here’s the breakdown of median salaries across the state:

• Teachers at K-6 schools made $72,286 annually
• Teachers at K-12 schools made $82,000 annually
• Teachers at 7-12 and 9-12 schools make a $84,240 median salary
• Teachers at County Special Services School Districts make $82,701 annually
• Teachers at Joint Vocational School Districts make $81,155 annually
• Teachers at charter schools make $68,438 annually.

Two school districts did not report teacher salary data: Salem County Vocational, and Brilla New Jersey Charter School in Paterson. We’ve included all other districts in the table below, which is sorted by median salary (highest to lowest).

Click here if you cannot see the chart above.

The state’s data also includes information about which grades each school district serves, and the number of students. To make our data table easier to read, we did not include that information in the chart.

Residents can view the entire Taxpayers’ Guide for 2024 here, and see a user manual for how to interpret the data here.

And, you can click here to see Patch’s report from last year’s Taxpayer Guide to Education Spending, which includes teacher salary data for 2022/23 and 2021/22.