Bay Area teachers make one-third of superintendents’ salaries. So why are superintendents automatically getting the same raises?

Hours before a walkout, administrators at the Pleasanton Unified School District coughed up a 10% pay hike earlier this month to keep teachers from hitting the picket line.

But teachers aren’t the only ones benefiting from a salary boost. Thanks to a contract clause known as “me too,” high-paid district administrators will receive identical raises as the employees whose contracts they helped negotiate.

Pleasanton isn’t an outlier. The “me too” clause included in several school districts’ faculty and staff contracts negotiated every three years specifies that when one bargaining unit receives a raise or increase in benefits, other bargaining units or employees will automatically receive the same.

“We would certainly like to see our principals and vice principals get a raise,” said Cheryl Atkins, president of the Association of Pleasanton Teachers. “When we talk about not wanting to see the ‘me too,’ we’re talking about our superintendent, who makes $360,000 a year and then gets a 10% raise on top of that.”

For years, Pleasanton Unified has given identical raises to district administrators — and those without “me too” clauses in their contracts, such as at-will employees like principals and vice principals. During the last contract reached in 2021, the district’s Superintendent David Haglund received a “me too” raise of the 4.5% raise given to classified and certificated teachers, on top of his annual 3.5% salary bump, elevating his base salary by more than $25,000.

But this year, the big question is whether the district can afford to boost pay for teachers — and everyone else.

The California Department of Education placed the average salary of a public school teacher for the 2021-22 school year at $88,508. The highest-paid teacher on Pleasanton Unified’s salary schedule — with 20 years of experience and 75 additional education credits — would receive a base salary of $123,004. With a 10% raise, that salary would increase by $12,000.

Although Haglund’s “me too” clause remains in place, for the first time in at least a decade, Haglund and district administrators have agreed to waive those raises for just this year, said Patrick Gannon, the district’s director of communications.

He said the decision wasn’t the result of pushback from teachers, but instead because the district simply couldn’t afford to pay the superintendent and administrators’ 13.5% raises — the 10% “me too” plus their annual 3.5% step increase — this year. For Haglund, that “me too” raise alone would have amounted to $36,000.

The California Teachers Association explained that often the clauses are included for classified staff, such as custodians, bus drivers and office employees, who are usually paid less and have less bargaining power. But in many districts, administrators at school and district offices also benefit from the practice.

And an analysis by the nonprofit education news site EdSource found that almost a fifth of 53 California superintendent contracts it evaluated contained “me too” clauses.

Troy Flint, the chief communications officer for the California School Boards Association, pointed out that “me too” clauses can be used by school districts to regulate and predict superintendent or administrator salaries.

“By regulate, I mean to provide some structure to the process for which those raises are given, as opposed to a more open-ended negotiation,” Flint explained.

Unionized teachers have expressed outrage over the clauses, which they say overpay administrators as districts are cutting programs and laying off staff to conserve financial resources.

“The ‘me too’ clause in our superintendent contract makes me question our district’s priorities,” said Cari Cardle, president of Oak Grove Union’s Elementary Education Association in Santa Rosa. “Oak Grove Union School District is moving resources away from students and the classroom, laying off valuable support staff … and proposing no raise for teachers. Our superintendent gets a 2.5% increase to her already large salary, on top of whatever percentage is negotiated by teachers.”

David Cash, a retired superintendent and a founder of the executive search firm Education Leadership Services, said superintendents’ contracts include “me too” clauses to ensure fair policies across the district. But he declined to comment further on why superintendents — who often make hundreds of thousands more than the teachers in their districts — would need to receive the same raise as teachers and staff.

“No increase is given to a bargaining unit unless a district can afford it,” Cash said. “The same would hold true for the superintendent.”

Some districts without “me too” clauses included in administrators’ contracts said they have historically offered school-level or district administrators the same raises they negotiate with classified and certificated staff. For example, Dublin Unified School District reached a tentative agreement with its teachers’ association last month for a 6% salary raise. If approved, school administrators are likely to receive a 5.5% increase.

Chip Dehnert, the district’s public information officer, explained that while leadership raises are always discussed separately from union negotiations, the district has a “long history” of passing a “me too” to leadership employees, although the district’s superintendent and executive staff are excluded.

Palo Alto Unified School District, which is still in negotiations with the teachers’ union, has a “me too” clause for district administrators but not executive-level employees, such as superintendents, explained Teri Baldwin, president of Palo Alto Educators Association.

The California Teachers Association explained that teacher unions cannot negotiate conditions in other employees’ contracts — or remove a “me too” clause from administrators’ contracts. But those employees can alter their own contract to take it out.

That is exactly what happened in San Ramon Valley Unified School District when Superintendent John Malloy renegotiated his contract in October to remove the “me too” clause and lowered his annual raise from 5% to 3%.

His revised contract also specified that if the district’s other bargaining units — classified and certificated staff — were to receive less than a 3% salary increase, Malloy would receive the same level as teachers and staff.

“Every time we got a salary increase, they got it as well (even) when it doubled their salary,” said Laura Finco, the president of the San Ramon Valley Educators Association. “It speaks volumes to the morale of our educators when your leader says ‘I value you enough to ensure that my salary, my compensation is never increased more than yours.’”