How Did McHenry County Schools Spend Our 2016 Tax Dollars?

Here’s a table that shows school superintend and teacher salaries for McHenry County school districts, as well as class sizes.

A Friend of McHenry County Blog did the heavy lifting in manipulating this data.

You will note that Marengo-Union and Riley Grade School Districts, plus Huntley Unit School District have the highest pupil to administrator ratios.

Each have over 200 students per administrator.

The McHenry High School District, on the other hand, has one administrator for each of it 106 students.

McHenry County School Districts 2016
Class Size, Administrators & Salaries
         
DISTRICT Average Class Size Pupil/ Admin Ratio Average Admin Salary Average Teacher Salary
Nippersink Grade Sch 2 19.2 173.3 $105,316 $55,803
Fox River Grove Grade Sch 3 21.5 147.0 117,063 56,283
McHenry Grade Sch 15 21.8 160.3 92,275 64,383
Riley Grade Sch 18 17.8 215.7 124,955 63,073
Cary Grade Sch 26 23.3 161.9 93,562 51,977
Harrison Grade Sch 36 19.4 122.7 90,843 42,770
Prairie Grove Grade Sch 46 17.3 131.6 101,231 53,439
Crystal Lake Grade Sch 47 19.8 157.0 98,067 58,144
Marengo-Union Grade Sch 165 22.7 250.5 97,311 51,904
Marengo High Sch 154 18.0 177.8 112,954 68,780
Crystal Lake High Sch 155 19.6 118.4 122,724 89,382
McHenry High Sch 156 19.8 106.0 103,969 69,522
Richmond-Burton High Sch 157 20.3 134.6 110,994 56,505
Johnsburg Unit Dist 12 22.0 158.6 106,260 63,297
Alden Hebron Unit Dist 19 12.5 141.0 98,764 42,366
Harvard Unit Dist 50 18.3 174.9 91,723 47,288
Huntley Unit Dist 158 23.5 222.7 98,135 58,972
Woodstock Unit Dist 200 21.5 192.0 116,351 59,845
Algonquin Unit Dist 300 23.5 173.6 102,295 56,921
State Average 19.0 174.1 $100,955 $55,071
Chicago 18.2 284.2 $111,316 $71,668

Comments

How Did McHenry County Schools Spend Our 2016 Tax Dollars? — 21 Comments

  1. EBF Funding calculation allows for these ratios of *Pricipals and Assistant Principals”
    Elementary school 450
    High school 600

  2. Average salary of teachers in Crystal Lake High School is way out of proportion to average salaries at other high schools and is NOT merited per results achieved by students. In a previous article on this blog regarding subject comprehension, Crystal Lake High students average score was 43.2. In contrast, students at Marengo High School had a score almost as good of 41.7. Average salary of teachers at Crystal Lake is $89,000 vs $69,000 at Marengo. Marengo teachers are much more cost effective than are teachers at Crystal Lake. Best bang for the buck for parents wanting a good education for their children apparently is at Marengo and not Crystal Lake.

  3. Excellent! Everyone please join me in demanding a pay raise for Marengo High School District 154 teachers. Our kids deserve no less. Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…

  4. ADEQUACY TARGETS have been determined very precisely by New Illinois State Law,
    which is called “Evidence Based Funding” (an ironic homage to ACA?)

    Specific job titles, student-to-job ratios, and cost-assumed-per-job-title are defined in the formula which the State now uses to distribute new funding to schools.

    So if a school district chooses to non-uniformly overpay any particular job description, it will at least be transparent to those who care to look.

    (The per-job-salaries allowed in Adequacy Target Funding Formula are not available in this document, which is the only one easily locate don ISBE EBF Funding page).

    https://www.isbe.net/Documents/EBF_Presentation_Detailed.pdf

  5. The question then is, what happens to districts which overspend on certain people or projects NOT considered ‘evidence-based’, then cry poor to the voters?

    There seems to be a built-in incentive to NOT fulfill the ratios and requirements in the EBF formula categories, so that the district’s ‘adequacy target funding level’ falls below 70%, so that triggers extra State funding.

    Which is not to say that the money isn’t being taxed and spent, but spent instead on extravagant salaries or superfluous jobs or pet building projects.

  6. No pay raises. Crystal Lake salaries need to brought down to other high school levels. Crystal Lake does not merit $89K average based on student results.

    Also, $89K average salary really is about $120K annually based on teachers working 9 months or less per year.

  7. “No pay raises. Crystal Lake salaries need to brought down to other high school levels”. Predictable? Or just another reflection on how these arrogant private sector people despise public employees and union labor? Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…

  8. I see no problem with an average of $89,000 for teachers. Some of them deserve a living wage. I have a HUGE problem with the administrator’s salaries AND the enormous number of them. It is NOT the teacher’s paycheck that is the problem.

  9. You might mind paying for different teachers now that new state funding law shifted pension contributions to local taxpayers

  10. What happened to merit pay? What happened to being compensated based on results? Of course, when it comes to union labor and public employees, conservatives’ line of thinking reverses dramatically…or is it fanatically? My compassionate conservative friends do not realize how transparent their hypocrisy is. Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, meeeeeoooooowwwwwwwww…

  11. So I guess the Illinois theory on paying teachers is, if you spend $200 K on a Kia, that makes it a Mercedes.

  12. Case closed. Compassionate conservatives’ DNA is predisposed to lower public education teacher’s salaries regardless of the scenario. Try again next time. In the meantime…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…

  13. I said nothing about being on any hook for pensions. I was strictly talking about take-home pay.

  14. Take home pay for everyone else is reduced by 6,2% for SocSec withholding, and we must pay for additional retirement savings ourselves.
    And our typical work requirements are 250 days work annually.
    By contrast,

    Woodstock D200 teachers have it 1.2% of salary withholding, for a pension worth 400% of max social security payments.
    AND teachers pensions began at age 53, 12 years sooner than social security.
    Teachers contract calls for 160 work days annually.

  15. Top politicians (all Democrats) in Illinois will PUT homeowners and taxpayers on the HOOK for the outrageously high pensions of teachers, their administrators and other government workers. Most of their pension funds are under water by a huge amount. This could happen if Pritzker gets elected. He promised to raise Illinois income taxes to pay for pensions and other excesses.

    Also, some persons in the fed of Chicago suggested that all property owners in Illinois pay a surtax of 1 percent of the value of their property over the next 30 years. A homeowner who never was a teacher or a government worker would have to bail out the pension funds. A senior homeowner on social security and meager savings and no pension and owning a home valued at $200K will have to pony up $2000 each year so that teachers and other government retirees can continue their lavish lifestyles while receiving up to $80K, $100K, $200K, $300K, $400K, and even $500k yearly pensions.

  16. I assure you bred, the Fed F’wit who uttered that solution, has a $500 K college education, who’s only thought about the middle class is, “me don’t know”.

  17. bred? You did alright until your last sentence. You can delete that “meager savings” business. The rest is 100% accurate. I don’t own any ponies so I won’t be upping anything. The state has already robbed me to the hilt.

  18. When you consider the horrendous scores of school readiness perhaps the superintendents should receive the same score percentage of their salary.
    The state of education is truly an embarrassment.

  19. The biggest problem isn’t the average salary; it’s the late career salary.

    Beginning teachers are often paid too little, and late career teachers are usually paid far too much.

    The system is designed that way on purpose, because pensions are based on end of career salaries.

    We need to flatten the compensation curve for teachers and all public sector employees.

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