High school principal salary causes dispute

The Maricopa Unified School District Governing Board voted on the new personnel schedule Wednesday, but there was some disagreement among board members on the new salary for Maricopa High School Principal Renita Myers. Myers is set to make $86,091 for the 2015-16 school year. In comparison to former MHS Principal June Celaya’s salary for the 2014-15 school year ($78,786), Myers will be making $7,205 more.

“I just don’t agree with the rate personally,” MUSD Governing Board member Gary Miller said. “I think that there’s a lot of good gems within our own district that are being promoted. For me, the biggest complication I have is that when we have a range between this and that and we’re up at the 78th percentile of the max out range is where I have difficulty with accepting that approval. Especially when the exiting principal made a considerable less amount of what’s going in now. [Myers] is coming in almost topped out, and that’s where I have difficulty… I think we have a lot of good principals that are working their way up in their own district and I think they’d be more than happy to have a salary of $81,000 or $80,000 compared to what they make now.”

After some debate, Miller motioned the personnel schedule be approved, but the item featuring Myers’s new salary be pulled out and voted on separately.

“I’m just going to say that [Myers’s salary] is well within and even below what other high schools pay,” Board Member Torri Anderson said. “If we were going to hire anyone in from somewhere else we would have to go higher than that. We want quality administrators. We don’t want to take the leftovers.”

After unanimously approving the rest of the personnel schedule, Miller still opposed Myers’s new salary, but the board approved it by a vote of 4 to 1.

“We don’t want to be having to hire new principals every year,” MUSD Governing Board President Patti Coutre said. “Leadership changes do take a toll at the school sites.”

The personnel schedule included the hiring of Butterfield Elementary teacher Wendy Wear, MHS social studies teacher Ryan Brumley, MHS Assistant Principal Jesse Roth, registered nurses Irisan Manalo and Evelyn Dilworth, medical assistants Tonya Pickins, Marjorie Weaver, Cynthia Acosta, Maria Tafolla and Kimiberly Quackenbush and RN substitute  Raith Coleman. The resignation of MHS teacher Gabe Jenkins was accepted.

***ADVERTISEMENT***Besides Myers, reclassifications included Gretch Brown from English Language Learners coach to the newly created position of director of Multiple Projects, Susan Van Hunnik from bus driver to substitute driver, and Karen Malouff from Santa Cruz Elementary administrative assistant to CTE administrative assistant.

The board went on to approve the purchase of two new buses, the sale of nine outdated or inoperable buses and the adopted budget for the 2015-16 school year.