Annual pay and benefits topped half a million dollars for some San Diego County school superintendents in 2022, according to data recently published by Transparent California.
The highest-paid K-12 superintendent that year was technically San Dieguito Union High School District’s Cheryl James-Ward — but only because she was paid an additional year’s salary due to being fired by the board. She was paid $496,616, or $527,912 including benefits.
Other than James-Ward, Cajon Valley Union School District Superintendent David Miyashiro was paid more than any other K-12 superintendent in the county, with a salary of $429,965. When including retirement and health contributions, Miyashiro was compensated $508,200. He has long been one of the county’s top-paid superintendents.
San Diego County Superintendent Paul Gothold was next highest-paid, with $393,926 in pay and $478,617 in total compensation including benefits. He oversees the county education office’s schools serving populations including juvenile court and homeless students, as well as the office’s work providing support and oversight to the county’s 42 school districts and dozens of charter schools.
Superintendent Lamont Jackson of San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest district with about 94,000 students, was the fourth-highest paid, with just under $400,000 in pay and $475,339 in total compensation including benefits.
By comparison, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho of Los Angeles Unified — the state’s largest district, with 389,000 students not including charters — started his job one month into 2022 and was paid $403,266 that year, or $490,201 when including benefits.
Superintendents’ compensation often reflects how long they have held their position, and it’s not uncommon for them to get raises from the board when the district’s bargaining units do.
Historically, pay for superintendents is not tied to performance or district size. But small rural school districts tend to pay their leaders less than urban ones.
Compensation includes not just regular salary but also other kinds of pay boosts that factor into leaders’ paychecks, such as monthly auto and expense allowances, stipends, bonuses and payouts of unused vacation days.
For example, county Superintendent Gothold received $361,312 in regular pay and $32,614 in other pay, which includes an additional monthly health and welfare contribution, an annual doctoral stipend, a monthly car allowance and vacation payout, a county office spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to comment further.
James-Ward received a $21,658 vacation payout and auto allowance of $6,667 in 2022, on top of an extra year’s salary, said current San Dieguito Superintendent Anne Staffieri.
In Cajon Valley, Miyashiro’s regular pay totaled $359,788, and he was also paid an additional $70,177 in other compensation. Currently, he gets $1,100 a month in allowances for his car and general expenses under his contract. He also gets 34 paid vacation days a year and 12 personal days and is paid at the end of every school year for any unused vacation days.
Miyashiro’s pay has risen since 2022; most recently, in November, the Cajon Valley board voted to give him a 7 percent raise and 2 percent bonus because employee unions were also getting similar raises. Now his base salary, without any additional pay, is $407,922.
Miyashiro noted he’s one of the longest-running superintendents in the county, having served in his position for 11 years. Under his leadership, he said, the district has won national recognition and accolades, as well as million-dollar grants for its World of Work program, which exposes students to potential careers from an early age. He also led his district’s early reopening during the pandemic and pointed to district efforts helping some students’ families get out of Afghanistan as the U.S. was leaving the country.
In San Dieguito, the school board fired James-Ward after months of controversy surrounding comments she made linking Asian student academic performance to an influx of wealthy Chinese immigrant families. She apologized for the comments and said her critics took her words out of context. She also accused the board of retaliating against her for having accused a trustee of harassment and having voiced concerns about its redistricting decisions.
Transparent California publishes the most comprehensive public employee pay data available for the state. However, it does not include data for many charter schools in San Diego County, which are independent schools funded with public dollars.
That’s partly because Transparent California has limited resources, the organization has said; charter schools are also less likely to respond to the organization’s requests for pay data and have the data on hand.
While charter school pay data is hard to come by, some charter school or charter school management CEOs receive pay that far exceeds that of most school district superintendents.
