Carlisle school board could vote Oct. 17 to increase superintendent salary
Carlisle Area School Board members could vote on Oct. 17 to increase the annual salary of Superintendent Colleen Friend to $180,000 for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The proposed raise is a slight increase of a little less than $2,000 to adjust for market conditions to keep Carlisle competitive with other school districts in southcentral Pennsylvania, Board President Paula Bussard said last week.
In May 2022, board members appointed Friend to replace acting superintendent Patty Sanker, who stepped in that January after Christina Spielbauer resigned as superintendent in late December 2021.
Salary history
The board approved a five-year contract with Friend effective July 1, 2022, with a starting annual salary of $167,500. That was her compensation through June 30, 2023.
On July 1, 2023, Friend's salary increased to $172,693, Bussard said. That was the compensation through June 30, 2024, when contract language triggered an automatic salary increase to $178,046 after Friend received high marks on her annual performance evaluation.
As part of this, Carlisle completed a review of market conditions that compare the compensation of its superintendent to that of superintendents in other school districts across Cumberland County and the region.
This included districts of comparable size to Carlisle with an enrollment of between 4,000 and 6,000 students, Bussard said. "Size-wise, the most comparable in Cumberland County is Mechanicsburg [Area School District]."
Not included in the review are salaries paid in southeastern Pennsylvania, especially suburban Philadelphia where superintendents tend to earn over $200,000 a year, Bussard said. The most recent round of hirings and promotions put the average salary in the review area at around $180,000 to $190,000, she said.
"We want to be competitive," Bussard said. "We want to recruit and retain a high-quality staff at every level."
The market adjustment between $178,046 and $180,000 amounts to about $1,954 in compensation for Friend, who is in the third year of her five-year contract. Aside from the salary increase, board members could vote to formalize her evaluation and approve her goals for 2024-25.
During a meeting last week, Bussard reviewed the evaluation process that started over the summer with Friend submitting a list of accomplishments from 2023-24. The highlights include:
• Significant progress in evaluating elementary and middle school programs and facilities.
• A final presentation and recommendation to the board on a project to restructure grades K-8.
• Greater implementation of STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math] activities in elementary schools
• A five-year collective bargaining agreement with the teaching staff.
Each board member completed a review assessment document that includes performance indicators under six domains, Bussard said. Board members then came together to compare the results, she said.
"Our superintendent does not have nine bosses," Bussard said. "The superintendent has one boss – the board. So, once we had a consensus, we then met and discussed it with the superintendent."
Board members determined that Friend exceeded expectations in the domains of Organization Leadership, Communications and Community Relations, Human Resource Management and Professionalism.
Meanwhile, they determined that Friend met expectations in the domains of District Operations and Financial Management and Student Growth and Achievement. "Those are areas where there is always likely to be opportunity for growth," Bussard said.
After the evaluation was completed, the board worked with Friend and her administration to prepare a list of goals for 2024-25 that include:
• A new comprehensive plan that calls for the collection this fall of input from students and families. A draft of the plan could be presented to the board in January followed by a public presentation in February. The plan needs to be submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Education by late March.
• A comprehensive strategy for the implementation of the proposed restructuring of grades K-8. This will include staffing, building usage and communication. From now through spring, district administrators will convene meetings with grade level and subject area leaders to formulate the steps in the strategy. A new round of community and family focus groups could take place in May.
• A structural review of the district elementary schools and the McGowan building of Carlisle High School. This could result in a report in February detailing possible renovations to each building along with a recommended list of priorities. One goal in the timing is to get information to board members in the lead-up to the budget cycle for 2025-26.
• To prepare and post a data dashboard of metrics on the district homepage. This dashboard could include information on student demographics, graduation rates and attendance rates.
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