The Bloomberg administration and the union representing New York City school principals and assistant principals reached a tentative contract agreement yesterday that would offer bonuses of up to $25,000 a year to select principals who agree to spend three years in troubled schools.
The deal would increase base pay by 23 percent, compounded over nearly seven years, and add 15 minutes to principals’ and assistant principals’ workdays. The contract would also revamp how principals are rated on their performance each year, discarding the blunt thumbs-up or thumbs-down system under which they are labeled either satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
It would be replaced by a more nuanced review, aligned to the Education Department’s new accountability system, which grades schools from A to F based on students’ progress.
The contract, which must be ratified by union members, would also end seniority rights that allowed veteran assistant principals without school assignments to force their way into certain vacancies, even over principals’ objections.
The change has long been sought by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who argued that “bumping rights” saddled principals with unwanted staff members.
The four-year contract fight with the union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, was unusually bitter even by the standards of city labor relations. But at City Hall yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg heralded the agreement as a turning point for the city and its principals. The mayor, using one of his favorite corporate metaphors, has often irked principals by likening them to “line managers” at a factory.
“Today’s agreement will allow us to give school principals and supervisors the substantial raises that we all know they deserve, while also making the reforms that will significantly improve education for our city’s 1.1 million students,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “The contract that we are proposing today reflects the important role that principals and supervisors play.”
Ernest A. Logan, the union president, said the contract would be a model. “We are now moving forward to recognizing people’s performance and paying them for the work that they do,” he said.
The deal would increase the starting salary of elementary school principals to $123,456 from $100,242. The maximum base pay for high school principals would rise to $154,295 from $125,282.
Starting salaries for assistant principals who work all year rather than just the 10 months that schools are in session would rise to $108,869 from $88,398, and their maximum salary would be $130,100, up from $108,869.
