NJ Districts With Highest-Paid School Administrators: See New Data

NEW JERSEY — More and more school districts in New Jersey are paying their administrators $150,000 or more per year, new state data shows.

The state Taxpayer’s Guide to Education Spending includes median administrator salaries and other data for all of New Jersey’s public school districts, including charter and vocational schools.

That includes superintendents, principals and assistant principals, curriculum directors and other employees in administrative positions within Garden State schools.

The Guide for the 2023/24 school year just came out this week. According to the latest data, the median salary for administrators in the 2023/24 year was $137,723 — about a $500 increase from the year before.

Data shows there are 117 districts and charter schools, out of more than 650 statewide, whose median administrative salaries were $150,000 or more for 2023/24. That's an increase over the previous year, when administrators at 85 districts made that much.

Gray Charter School in Essex paid its administrators the most in the 2022/23 school year, state data shows: A median amount of $229,906, which is an increase from $203,768 in 2022/23. The median pay increased from $165,000 back in the 2021/22 year.

As is the case with teachers, salaries also vary depending on what grade levels each administrator is working with, and by the type of school they work in. High school administrators (working in 9-12 buildings) had the highest standard salary in 2023/24, and those at charter schools make about $34,000 less than that.

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

• Administrators at K-6 schools made $123,540 annually
• Administrators at K-8 schools make $131,992 annually
• Administrators at K-12 schools made $140,342 annually
• Administrators at 9-12 schools make $149,136 annually
• Administrators at County Special Services School Districts make $125,147 annually
• Administrators at Joint Vocational School Districts make $140,100 annually
• Administrators at charter schools make $115,000 annually.

And if you’re a superintendent in the Garden State, you’re in luck: New Jersey superintendents report making roughly $25,000 more than the national average of $156,468, per the School Superintendents Association. That’s in part due to the 2019 elimination of a wage cap put in place by former Gov. Chris Christie, which barred superintendent salaries from rising above $191,584.

We've included a table below with salary data for all districts in the state, sorted alphabetically by county. You can search the table for your district, or sort it by highest and lowest salary. Any schools marked with "N.R." did not report data for this year.

Click here if you cannot see the table above.

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

You can also compare the 2023/24 district salary numbers to 2022/23 in this Patch article.

In the 2022/23 school year, more than 3,200 New Jersey administrators made salaries of $150,000 per year or more. Five made over $300,000 a year during that year.

Related article — Highest-Paying NJ Schools: See Teacher Salaries By District