Central Office vs. School-Based Pay: What 2025 BCPS Salary Data Suggests

According to Govsalaries.com

Using publicly available salary records can help communities understand how compensation is distributed across roles in a school system. The figures below summarize selected 2025 fiscal year salary data (including benefits, excluding hourly employees) for Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) as presented on GovSalaries.com. The goal here is descriptive: to highlight where pay appears concentrated and where large groups of school-based educators fall below Maryland’s reported statewide average salary of $67,000.

Key reference point

Maryland statewide average salary (reference): $67,000.

Central office roles over $100,000 (selected categories)

GovSalaries.com data indicate 496 central office administrators and staff received over $100,000 in yearly salary (including benefits). The reported average across this group is $136,524, for a total 2025 fiscal-year impact of $67,715,978.

Examples of central office categories over $100,000 (count — average):

• Specialists: 138 — $123,139

• Supervisors: 89 — $124,447

• Managers: 53 — $140,003

• Directors: 34 — $177,935

• Executive Directors: 21 — $227,292

• Engineers: 20 — $130,785

• Accountants: 15 — $108,181

Selected individual central office leadership salaries listed include: Superintendent ($331,700), Chief of Staff ($270,858), Chief Academic Officer ($264,611), Chief Operations Officer ($264,611), Chief Human Resources Officer ($249,611), and Chief of Schools ($249,611).

Educators below the statewide average

In the same dataset, nearly 2,000 classroom teachers are listed as earning less than the statewide average. Specifically, 1,959 teachers are shown below $67,000, with an average of $62,979.

Two of the largest below-average groups are elementary classroom teachers and special education teachers:

• Elementary Classroom: 595 — $62,536

• Special Education: 322 — $63,425

Additional educator categories listed below the statewide average include (selected examples): Kindergarten (113 — $62,634), Middle School Science (50 — $62,280), Secondary Vocal Music (19 — $61,603), Elementary Instrumental Music (9 — $60,992), and Elementary Computer Science (5 — $60,978).

A small central-office below-average group

The dataset also shows a much smaller number of central office staff below the statewide average: 3 supervisors with an average of $63,917.

What these figures can (and can’t) tell us

These figures are not a full compensation study and don’t explain factors like years of experience, lane/step placement, stipends, role definitions, or differences in contract structures. However, they do illustrate a distribution pattern worth examining: hundreds of central office roles above $100,000 alongside large groups of school-based educators below the statewide average.

If you’d like, the next step is to pair these descriptive counts with additional context (e.g., experience bands, school-level staffing needs, and retention data) to better understand what drives the gaps and what policy options might address them.

How Salary Levels are Established

Maryland’s public school compensation is generally built from published professional salary schedules, which outline pay ranges by role and then place individual employees on a “step” based on objective criteria. For many educator positions, the schedule is structured around two main variables: (1) **years of service/experience** (often shown as steps) and (2) **education level or credentials** (for example, bachelor’s, master’s, master’s plus additional credits, or other advanced degrees and licensure categories). In practice, this means two employees with the same job title can earn different salaries depending on where they fall on the schedule.

Administrative and executive roles are typically tied to separate schedules (or separate lanes within a broader schedule) that reflect different job classifications, responsibilities, and market comparisons. While these schedules may still use step-like progressions, placement can also reflect factors such as prior administrative experience, specialized certifications, and the scope of the role (for example, school-based administration versus central office leadership). The result is that executive and central office administrative compensation often follows a different structure than classroom teacher pay, even when both are “schedule-based.”

Another major driver of differences is the **length of the work year**. Many classroom teaching positions are based on a **10‑month** school year, while numerous administrative and central office roles are **12‑month** positions. Even when daily rates are comparable, a 12‑month contract can produce a substantially higher annual salary simply because it covers more working days. This distinction is important when comparing “yearly salary” figures across roles: annual totals can reflect both the pay scale placement *and* the number of contracted days.

Taken together, the published schedules help explain how salaries are calculated—through degree/licensure lanes, years served, and contract length—while also clarifying why comparisons between executive, administrative, and teacher salaries can look especially wide when 12‑month roles are compared directly to 10‑month roles on an annual basis.