A Florida superintendent has reaped $28,250 in bonuses after his district met a series of student-performance targets spelled out in his contract.
In addition to his base pay of $191,574, Hillsborough County schools chief Earl Lennard is entitled to $200 for each of the 54 schools in the district that recently made adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. He also got $100 for each of the system’s 87 schools with an A rating in Florida’s own accountability system.
The district, which includes Tampa, has a total of 200 schools. Additional money is awarded for increases in the state test scores of the district’s Hispanic and African-American students.
The school board of the 188,000-student district wrote the incentives into Mr. Lennard’s contract last year. He did miss out on one bonus opportunity entirely: the $5,000 he would have received if he had created a performance-based pay system for his top administrators.
Board member Jennifer Faliero said the bonuses make clear the reasons behind the superintendent’s compensation. “It makes it transparent to the public,” she said.
