Salary for superintendent increased to $ 189,000

The State Board of Education is giving schools Superintendent Paolo DeMaria a raise and a bonus.

At its monthly meeting in Columbus on Tuesday, the board voted 13-1 to award DeMaria a 2.75-percent raise, boosting his annual salary to $189,571, and adding a bonus of $20,000. There was no discussion.

Board member Sarah Fowler, of Rock Creek in northeast Ohio, was the lone dissenting vote. In a written review, she rated DeMaria “ineffective” at “school improvement.” Most of her colleagues rated the superintendent “effective” or “very effective.”

The pay raise comes less than a week after state-issued report cards showed modest overall academic gains for Ohio’s schools in the 20172018 school year, including a 1.6 percent increase in the statewide English proficiency rate and an 0.2 percent increase in math proficiency.

Statewide, 36 percent of traditional public school districts earned A’s or B’s, 62 percent received C’s or D’s and about 2 percent were rated as F’s.

DeMaria, a former education consultant and adviser to former Republican Gov. Bob Taft, has led Ohio’s public school system for a little more than two years.

The board also approved a resolution outlining 18 goals for the coming year for DeMaria.

They include completing recommendations for new graduation requirements and proposing changes to state report cards; urging lawmakers to enact boardrecommended changes to teacher evaluations; and strengthening department efforts to support school improvement.

Based on ratings and comments submitted by board members, DeMaria “has been effective in working on the education system policy and system performance, relationship with the State Board of Education, relationship with education stakeholders, communications, operations of the Ohio Department of Education and the 2017-2018 priority projects,” according to the resolution authorizing the raise.