What do SAUSD’s School Administrators REALLY Do?

After the release of the OC Register’s article “Public School paychecks hit six figures for 3,300,”  I was curious as to what our SAUSD School Administrators really do? What do all the people sitting in cubicles and corner offices in the Administration really do? Do they deserve the six figure salaries for what they do?

As a student, we see Administrators as the people in the front office that no one ever wants to deal with, because it usually means you’re in some sort of trouble – and they have the power to suspend you, expel you and hence, you never want to cross paths with these individuals.  Other than this, they serve no real purpose in the day to day operations of the classrooms (again…from a student’s point of view), and all they do is sit on their gluteus maximus waiting for another victim to step into their office.

Now, from an average citizen’s perspective…what exactly do these Administrators really do?   That’s the question that I would like to answer, and therefore, I am going to begin to research and investigate what these people really do, and why you need FIVE (5) Administrators at ONE (1) school site.

Each administrator is paid say around $100,000 to $130,000 a year in the SAUSD; and the SAUSD will be my primary focus in this investigation. If one school site has this many administrators, we can assume that the rest of the schools do to.  Further, do the math, this averages to about $500,000 in administrative salaries give or take, per school.

According to the United States Department of Labor, the average salary for a Principal in a large district (…like the SAUSD), who has earned at least a Masters (…like most in the SAUSD, since they know getting a MA will boost their salaries, hence the only reason most pursue them) is as follows:

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About Jonathan Espinoza