Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 12:36     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Bethesda Magazine has printed the salaries of the top wage earners in the school district.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2025/09/05/top-100-salaries-fiscal-year-2025/

Question: Why do we need two chief academic officers: Ms. Niki Hazel Porter and Dr. Peggy Pugh?


Salaries don’t seem that high to be honest. I don’t think I’d take a job as a principal for ~190k.


Yeah seriously. My kid’s HS has 2500 kids. That’s a very low salary to deal with all the daily chaos that thousands of teenagers and their helicopter parents bring.



Wrong way to look at it. There are APs and counselors too. You have to look at the total staffing vs the population and their needs.


The AP’s and counselors are often more challenging than the thousands of teenagers and their helicopter parents.
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 10:46     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:The salaries aren’t an issue for me. Where all of these people were educated is an issue for me. We have a county full of highly educated people, whose kids are being led by people with degrees from institutions that give anyone with a pulse a degree.


HUGE problem!I know there is a teaching shortage but there must be some standards. Unfortunately, historically teachers have come from the bottom 50% of their high school class. Maybe that's changed somewhat. Its not to say that there are not some very smart people who are teaching but all of this online stuff has just made things worse in terms of teacher quality. I'll never forget one of my science teachers in high school telling people that she went into teaching because she got divorced and getting a teaching degree was the easiest thing she could do to start earning a living.
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 09:44     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:How about all the money we paid Monifa


She's lounging with it at UMD.
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 09:43     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Bethesda Magazine has printed the salaries of the top wage earners in the school district.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2025/09/05/top-100-salaries-fiscal-year-2025/

Question: Why do we need two chief academic officers: Ms. Niki Hazel Porter and Dr. Peggy Pugh?


Salaries don’t seem that high to be honest. I don’t think I’d take a job as a principal for ~190k.


Yeah seriously. My kid’s HS has 2500 kids. That’s a very low salary to deal with all the daily chaos that thousands of teenagers and their helicopter parents bring.



Wrong way to look at it. There are APs and counselors too. You have to look at the total staffing vs the population and their needs.


Sure. But at the end of the day, it is the principal who is held accountable for anything that happens to all of those kids, not the APs or the counselors.

The principal job is absolutely insane and untenable as it's currently structured, in my opinion. That's why it's hard to find good principals, because who wants a job that's pretty much on-call 24/7, highly political, highly visible and fraught with the worst constraints of middle management from a population with high expectations?
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 09:32     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
How about all the money we paid Monifa
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 09:23     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Bethesda Magazine has printed the salaries of the top wage earners in the school district.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2025/09/05/top-100-salaries-fiscal-year-2025/

Question: Why do we need two chief academic officers: Ms. Niki Hazel Porter and Dr. Peggy Pugh?


Salaries don’t seem that high to be honest. I don’t think I’d take a job as a principal for ~190k.


Yeah seriously. My kid’s HS has 2500 kids. That’s a very low salary to deal with all the daily chaos that thousands of teenagers and their helicopter parents bring.



Wrong way to look at it. There are APs and counselors too. You have to look at the total staffing vs the population and their needs.
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 23:23     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Check out Dr. Cage
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 22:43     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
What happened to the Chief’s that were not rehired into their high paying position and were moved into a position that is generally paid at a lower rate? Did they get to keep their higher pay or were they forced to take a pay cut that is commensurate with their new position? I think there were 3 or 4 that were not rehired when Dr. Taylor restructured central office.
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 21:27     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:I think it's not so much that MCPS leans on those fake-y online institutions but that those institutions reach out to schools and staff. My school used to have a lot of "breakfasts" sponsored by Walden and other TV commercials institutions, where a rep would bring in donuts and then sit in the staff lounge all day to "advise" about courses available. The former admin just saw it as a chance to get free treats for the staff, but the current admin looked into the schools and put the brakes on it, mainly because the schools are shady.

MCPS has partnerships and reimbursement agreements with several quality teacher ed schools. I have one masters from Hopkins and another from McDaniel, both were all in-person or synchronous with zoom classes (during covid), with excellent courses that related directly to my teaching. DH did an admin masters in a cohort at Hood and says the same. Except after working the numbers we realized the increase in salary was nowhere near enough to justify the extra stress and responsibility of being an administrator.


The extra pay comes after being: nationally certified board teacher
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 15:58     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
I think it's not so much that MCPS leans on those fake-y online institutions but that those institutions reach out to schools and staff. My school used to have a lot of "breakfasts" sponsored by Walden and other TV commercials institutions, where a rep would bring in donuts and then sit in the staff lounge all day to "advise" about courses available. The former admin just saw it as a chance to get free treats for the staff, but the current admin looked into the schools and put the brakes on it, mainly because the schools are shady.

MCPS has partnerships and reimbursement agreements with several quality teacher ed schools. I have one masters from Hopkins and another from McDaniel, both were all in-person or synchronous with zoom classes (during covid), with excellent courses that related directly to my teaching. DH did an admin masters in a cohort at Hood and says the same. Except after working the numbers we realized the increase in salary was nowhere near enough to justify the extra stress and responsibility of being an administrator.
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 15:39     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:In order that they are listed in that article, here are the undergraduate institutions they attended:

Virginia Wesleyan
JMU
UVA
Bowling Green
UMD
Spelman
SUNY Cortland
Nicholls State University
UMBC
Could not find
NYU
University of New Mexico
JHU
Bryn Mawr
Catholic
UMBC
JMU
Howard
Could not find









I think the comment was more about the sketchy master's and doctorate degrees many in MCPS seem to acquire from places like Walden University.
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 15:03     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The salaries aren’t an issue for me. Where all of these people were educated is an issue for me. We have a county full of highly educated people, whose kids are being led by people with degrees from institutions that give anyone with a pulse a degree.


I’m a teacher in MCPS and I agree with this. And don’t get me started about all the administrators with online doctorates in education- eye roll


At one school a few teachers got their online doctorates and they were with the fake schools.


This. Look at where these people got their “doctorates”.
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 14:36     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The salaries aren’t an issue for me. Where all of these people were educated is an issue for me. We have a county full of highly educated people, whose kids are being led by people with degrees from institutions that give anyone with a pulse a degree.


Please list these unworthy institutions so that I can pick up some extra degrees since it's so easy?


MCPS leans heavy on McDaniel College.
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 14:31     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The salaries aren’t an issue for me. Where all of these people were educated is an issue for me. We have a county full of highly educated people, whose kids are being led by people with degrees from institutions that give anyone with a pulse a degree.


THIS. THANK GOD I AM NOT ALONE IN THINKING THIS.


So you're wondering why more Ivy League grads don't go in to public school administration?
Anonymous
Post 09/07/2025 14:26     Subject: Highest salaries in MCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The salaries aren’t an issue for me. Where all of these people were educated is an issue for me. We have a county full of highly educated people, whose kids are being led by people with degrees from institutions that give anyone with a pulse a degree.


I’m a teacher in MCPS and I agree with this. And don’t get me started about all the administrators with online doctorates in education- eye roll


At one school a few teachers got their online doctorates and they were with the fake schools.