Alberta school superintendents have the highest average salaries in Canada. Their annual base salary increased by 10 per cent between 2013 and 2016 – a three-year period where teachers’ salaries remained flat, and Albertans’ incomes decreased.
According to a study by the Alberta School Boards Association, the salary for superintendents in the province in 2015-16 was $206,250; and the maximum salary, which belonged to Edmonton Catholic Schools superintendent Joan Carr was $357,404 – nearly double the average salary for superintendents in Ontario, and around $65,000 more than the average salaries in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
Alberta education minister David Eggen said the province will not approve any new superintendent contracts until they study the situation.
“This is obviously an area of concern,” he said. “I think we have to look at it more systematically to ensure that compensation, which, remember, is money given to boards for student education, is being spent in the best way possible.”
Alberta Teachers’ Association president Greg Jeffery responded to the study with the following statement:
“Teachers are predictably upset by this report on rapidly increasing superintendent salaries. In the past six years, our salary increases featured five zeroes. Government asked teachers to do their part to help out, and teachers did; it’s quite disheartening to hear that superintendents and the school boards that employ them did not get that memo.”
Carr’s contract approval has been put on hold, and Eggen said he will make a decision in the coming weeks.
With files from Nicole Weisberg
