For years, teacher pay in New Hampshire has remained low, with new teachers facing average salaries of $41,590. And for years, Democrats, teachers unions, and other advocates have urged increased state investment in public schools to direct money to teacher salaries. 

This year, Republicans are raising their own concerns about low teacher salaries. But conservatives see a different culprit: administrator pay. School districts are spending too much of the money they do receive on school administrators, Republicans argue, and should reduce that spending and direct it to teachers instead. 

Starting in the 2026 town meeting season, a new law will require that school districts provide salary data to their residents every year. Republicans hope it will inspire residents to push for school budget changes at the local level.

Signed by Gov. Chris Sununu this month, the law, passed under House Bill 1265 and known as the Students First Act, requires school districts to produce four charts at least a week before their annual budget meetings in March. The list includes three line charts: one to show the average teacher salary over the past 10 years; another to show the average administrator’s salary over the same period; and a third to indicate the annual cost per pupil at that district over the same time period.

The fourth item is a chart showing the salaries of the top four highest-paid administrators in the school district. 

To critics of school spending, the charts – which must be presented by the school district without additional context or commentary – will help town residents more clearly see any discrepancies in teacher and administrator pay for themselves. But the bill also seeks to highlight the pay of “directors or coordinators of diversity, equity, and inclusion”; if a school district employs administrators with those roles, they must include them in their calculations of administrative pay, the new law states.

The legislation is one of a handful of bills signed by Sununu and pushed for by Republicans that strengthen fiscal oversight for schools.

House Bill 1195 allows voters in multi-town school administrative units to vote to adopt different ways to apportion budgets among towns. And Senate Bill 383 creates a specific process for voters to adopt school district tax caps – and requires that those tax caps rise with inflation, and not due to student enrollment increases.

Together, the bills seek to address what Republicans are increasingly calling a problem in New Hampshire: school budgets that increase as average school enrollment drops. Democrats argue that those increases are due to increasing costs for schools and a high demand for teachers, and note that many New Hampshire schools in “property poor” towns are struggling to maintain staff and programs. But Republicans say they are indicators that school budgets can be cut.

And conservatives have zeroed in on school administrator pay.

Data released by the state Department of Education in January indicates that superintendents make an average of $124,777 per year; at the high end, the Oyster River superintendent made $200,357, according to the department.

The average teacher salary in New Hampshire in the 2023-2024 school year is $67,096.40, according to separate numbers from the department.

Further data suggests Massachusetts pays its teachers more than New Hampshire, despite the states spending similar amounts per student in schools. Massachusetts spends an average of $23,941 per student, the sixth highest in the country, according to a 2024 national survey conducted by the National Education Association, a teachers union. New Hampshire spends $21,082, the seventh highest. But the average teacher salary in the Bay State is $92,307 – about $25,000 more than New Hampshire’s, the survey shows. 

Rep. Kristin Noble, a Bedford Republican, cited those numbers to argue that Massachusetts school districts are devoting a higher share of their budgets to teacher pay than districts in New Hampshire. 

“These administrators are not just profiting from taxpayers; they are profiting on the backs of teachers,” Noble said in a speech on the House floor.

Representatives of New Hampshire school boards and administrators say the administrative pay in New Hampshire is justified – and not out of the ordinary. 

Mark MacLean, the executive director of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association and the former superintendent of the Merrimack Valley School District in Penacook, said administrators make up a smaller proportion of overall school staff than other industries, such as health care.

School district administration, MacLean said in an interview, is “highly nuanced.” New laws and regulations from the Legislature and the State Board of Education can increase strain on superintendents and assistant superintendents and drive some districts to add more positions. The increasing needs of students after COVID – including efforts to address mental health problems and learning loss – have required many schools to launch entirely new programs, which can also increase staff, MacLean added.

“My experience is that school administrators work 365 days a year, all year round, to make sure that they’re serving the needs of their communities and their districts and their students first,” MacLean said.

Barrett Christina, the executive director of the New Hampshire School Boards Association, noted that teacher pay and administrative pay could differ in part because they are set by different processes at different times of the year.

Teacher pay is negotiated by teachers unions during collective bargaining, which typically takes place in the fall and early winter each school year. That process determines a contract with salaries for the following school year, and the school board then incorporates the contract into their budget process through the winter. 

Administrator pay, meanwhile, is negotiated directly between the prospective candidate for the job and the school board. Those negotiations occur whenever a new person comes into the role, and without direct regard to the collective bargaining contracts, Christina noted.

Competition for talent – particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic – gives candidates for superintendent the bargaining power to negotiate higher pay and benefits, Christina noted. 

But advocates on the right say school boards could devote more to teacher pay and less to administrators and are deliberately choosing not to.

“Our school system exploits the real crisis of low teacher pay to get taxpayers to keep forking over more money,” said Ian Huyett, associate director at the conservative advocacy organization Cornerstone, in an email. “But even though taxpayers keep agreeing to these increases, none of it has gone to teachers in twenty years. Instead, we get this larger, better-paid, and more powerful class of school administrators at multiple levels.”

Cornerstone heavily advocated for the Students First Act; an earlier version, under Senate Bill 219, would have barred school districts from hiring new assistant superintendents unless the district also paid teachers according to a salary floor, set at four times the average cost per pupil – or $84,328 on average in 2024.

HB 1265 does not take effect until July 2025, meaning the charts will not need to be released until one week before annual school meetings in spring 2025. But Huyett said Cornerstone hopes the charts can change the conversation around school funding and teacher pay.

“If voters see these charts in the local grocery store and demand change, we can offer teachers a more competitive salary while stabilizing out-of-control spending at the same time,” he said.

“We also hope to show conservatives that teachers are not really the archenemy. The Republican activist class has this tendency to say ‘it’s good (that) teachers are poor’ and bash them for getting summer vacation. This is tone-deaf and alienates normal independents, who like some of their kids’ teachers, and diverts attention from this huge, underlying fraud in education spending.”

To MacLean, the concerns around administrative pay are overblown; schools face budgetary strains that go well beyond the size of the superintendent’s office. 

​​”I don’t think that there’s bloat, but I think that you can make numbers and percentages – without digging into the details – say essentially anything you want,” MacLean said. 

But he said the new law would force school boards – and administrators – to communicate to their voters about why the budgets and funding are important. 

Christina agreed. 

“Whether or not it’s administrative load or any line item in the budget, the school board has to be able to justify to the voters that expense. Why are we spending money on this many administrators? Why are we spending money on a new football field? Why are we spending money on any number of things?”

Community Corner

Also: Death at homeless camp; families of unsolved killings, missing persons rally for transparency; best cheap eats in US is here in NH.

Posted Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 3:24 pm ET

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“We didn’t want to do this,” Lempster Superintendent James M. Lewis said, “but this is the route we have available to us now.”

If the Lempster School District prevails, this dispute could help to clarify the limits of the state board’s authority, according to Barrett M. Christina, executive director of the New Hampshire School Boards Association.

And if the state’s legal team prevails?

“I think it would give the state board of education unfettered authority to overrule decisions made at the local level,” Christina said.

Last fall, Leite asked the Lempster School District to sign a tuition contract with Mount Royal Academy, a Catholic school in nearby Sunapee. That way, high school students from Lempster — which doesn’t have a high school of its own — could opt to attend the private school at taxpayer expense.

The district already has contracts with a few public high schools in the area. Leite sought to add Mount Royal to the menu of options. That has been permissible since 2021, when state law was changed to allow districts that lack a public school for a particular grade level to approve tuition contracts with private religious schools.

As of last spring, a couple of students were already attending Mount Royal through such a tuition arrangement with the town of Croydon, according to headmaster Derek Tremblay.

Lempster’s school board met with Mount Royal representatives in January to discuss Leite’s request, but decided in February not to pursue the contract, according to school board meeting minutes. The board voiced concerns about the narrower scope of services that Mount Royal provides, particularly with regard to special education.

“After all consideration, the board said, ‘You know … it doesn’t match with what we’re looking for,’” Lewis said. “And the board has that right.”

Leite, however, didn’t give up and filed the appeal.

The state scheduled hearings on the matter, but then the Lempster school board filed suit in April, claiming the state board has a pattern of asserting jurisdiction where it legally has none, forcing public schools to spend time and money on appellate processes that lack any basis in state law.

“Sometimes you have to say ‘no,’ and this is a situation where we’re not going to roll over,” Lewis said.

The presiding judge granted a preliminary injunction on July 30, with a ruling that suggests Lempster’s claims seem potentially persuasive.

State claiming very broad authority

Lawyers in the attorney general’s office, who represent the state board, have refuted the Lempster School District’s allegations. They argue state lawmakers clearly intended the state board to supervise, manage, and direct local school districts. They cite a law that gives the state board jurisdiction over a range of appeals.

One of those lawyers, Rory S. Miller, argued in a court filing in May that the state board has “complete authority” to act when disputes arise between individuals and school districts unless state law offers a specific command to the contrary. That, he added, means the state board has the discretion to direct public schools to approve tuition agreements with private schools on an appeal-by-appeal basis.

But that argument drew a skeptical line of questioning from Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Daniel I. St. Hilaire during a July 31 hearing on a motion to dismiss Lempster’s lawsuit.

“How can they upend a decision by a local school board and force them to enter into a contract?” he asked. “I don’t understand that.”

Miller replied that local school boards are subordinate entities that must obey the state board’s edicts. That’s how it’s been in New Hampshire for more than a century, he said.

St. Hilaire has yet to rule on the state’s motion to dismiss, but his order granting a preliminary injunction rebuffed key pieces of Miller’s case. He wrote that the Lempster School District can pursue contracts “in whatever way it wishes,” that the district was “under no obligation to comply with Leite’s request,” and that the attorney general’s office has cited laws that don’t actually give the state board authority to review this particular decision.

Christina, of the school boards association, said the state Board of Education clearly has legal authority to hear certain types of appeals, but the attorney general’s office is advancing an overbroad argument that would give the state board too much discretion.

Christina said the state board — all seven members were appointed by Republican Governor Chris Sununu and confirmed by the state’s five-member Executive Council — has taken an expansive view of its power in the past six or seven years. Members often seem to side with appellants just because they dislike what the local school board decided, he said.

“Anybody with any complaint seems to be getting their way, regardless of the merits or legalities of the case before the state board,” he said.

Andrew C. Cline, chairman of the state board, disputed that claim. He said the state board has ruled against parents several times because what they requested would have been inappropriate for the state board to impose.

“The board cannot and does not exceed the authority given to it by statute, and we consult with legal counsel in every contested case between a parent and school district to make sure we do not exceed our granted authority,” he said in an email.

Cline noted that parties can file an appeal in court if they believe the state board has overstepped.

But the appellate process itself can put resource-constrained school districts in a tough spot, Christina said.

“They can appeal an unfavorable decision from the state Board of Education, but that’s time, effort, money,” he said.

Religious discrimination not the crux

During the July 31 court hearing, Leite told the judge she assumes the Lempster school board’s refusal to ink a contract with a private religious school must be discriminatory and based on the board members’ personal beliefs.

But others said the school board members had asked questions and articulated concerns unrelated to Mount Royal’s religious affiliation.

“I don’t think the religion aspect had anything to do with it,” Superintendent Lewis told The Boston Globe.

Tremblay, the Mount Royal headmaster, said the Lempster school board members were “cordial” and “sincere” when he met with them in January.

“It seemed to me like they were asking all the questions that really mattered to them,” Tremblay told the Globe, “and I don’t remember religion being a dominating influence. … I don’t even remember the question being asked.”

Leite, who has not granted the Globe’s interview requests, also told the judge she doesn’t believe it’s necessary for her family to pursue any alternative funding arrangement, such as by asking for a “manifest educational hardship” exception or tapping into the state’s “education freedom accounts” program.

“I am not looking for any handouts,” she said.

Under the EFA program, a family that earns up to 350 percent of the federal poverty level — that’s about $109,000 for a family of four — can use money the state would have spent on their child’s public school education to cover costs associated with private school or home-schooling. That EFA funding averaged $5,235 per student last year, according to the New Hampshire Department of Education.

Tuition for high school students at Mount Royal will be $10,700 this school year, Tremblay said.

Parents who send their children to Mount Royal do so knowing the school doesn’t have the same level of resources they could find at a government-run school, Tremblay added. The academy doesn’t have a school psychologist or specialists in speech or occupational therapy, he noted.

“We will not be able to support as much as you could receive in a public school,” he said, “but we’re certainly willing to do everything we can.”

The dispute between the Lempster School District and the state board is happening as policymakers have debated whether and how to expand New Hampshire’s school-choice policies, while also grappling with court orders that deemed major components of the state’s overall school funding apparatus unconstitutional.

The leaders who voters select in November could bring big changes.

Sununu’s successor will decide who to appoint to the state board of education as incumbents finish their four-year terms.

Exactly how much power those appointees can wield over locally elected school officials could depend on how the courts decide Lempster’s case.

Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.