Houston Principals Eligible for Bigger Bonuses with Revised Pay Plan

Houston principals could earn performance bonuses as high as $12,000 under a revised performance pay plan approved by the Houston ISD board in early November.

Like teachers, the bonuses Houston principals receive under the district’s Accelerating Student Progress Increasing Results and Expectations (ASPIRE) program will depend on the amount of academic progress their students make on standardized tests, primarily the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test. Also like teachers, the maximum bonus principals will be able to earn is about 15 percent of their annual salary.

Last year’s principal bonuses topped out at $9,000 and were based on the total bonus amount their campus teachers earned.

The maximum bonus for principals increased $3,000 this year and now stands at about $5,000 more than the maximum teacher bonus. The increase in principal bonuses, combined with the fact that a significantly higher percentage of principals than teachers earned bonuses last year, has teacher leaders crying foul. One leader told the Houston Chronicle that the district must “…think a whole lot more of the principals than they do the teachers.” A district spokesman countered that the district’s principals are the instructional leaders of their respective campuses.

The district has set aside more than $25 million for bonuses this year, $24 million of which will go to teachers. An additional $1.3 million will be used for principal bonuses.