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You know - that argument gets used a lot, especially for colleges: great football teams create a higher profile for a university and drives enrollment. I just don't know - I mean Auburn would beat Harvard every day out of the week in football. Would you choose Auburn over Harvard if you weren't going there to play football?

well, I've always said teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated. But now that I've actually seen the latest salaries, I think this is ridiculous. Why does a "supervisor" make so much more $$ than a teacher?? Their "mininum" is more than I'm making working as a software engineer! And I don't get a summer vacation either.

here's the problem:
The lowest salary a supervisor can receive is $101,380 based on the contract

school sports are alot more important in private schools than public ones. having good sports teams means more students striving to attend the school and it raises the profile of said school.

i dont think the same carries over to the public school system, though, so i cant understand why you would overpay for an athletic director.

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He needs this promotion to adequately milk the system some more.

Hey about about taking the promotion and not taking a pay hike.

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Do we really need to be so concerned about hiring and firing school coaches, as though we're talking about the Yankees or Mets? Is it worth $130,000+ per year to make that "enhancement"? A reasonable person might suggest that the athletic director could suggest to Mr. Venutolo that a specific change might need to be made.

We're talking about school kids right? Should we really care if school number 852 beats school number 1,346 in sport X? Sure athletics teach valuable lessons and they are great and they provide a safe alternative to running around unsupervised after school but I'll never understand the life and death win at all costs mentality associated with some high school (and younger) "programs." How many hundreds of billions of dollars get pumped into school athletics and what do we really have to show for it? Are we better served than if some of that money were spent on actual learning-based activities?

I went to McNair- and I don't think i EVER saw Dwyer doing anything. Nice guy though. I'll take that job.

New Jersey is just so f*c#ed up.

BIG A.D. PAY BOOSTS
Reading program expansion cut for supervisors' raises

Monday, June 22, 2009
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

What's in a name? A huge pay hike, if you are an athletic supervisor at one of Jersey City's public high schools.

The Jersey City Board of Education recently promoted the district's five high school athletic directors to "athletic supervisors," a change in status that brings with it a combined salary hike of $132,244.

And at least one teacher is calling a foul since budget cuts have forced the district to hold off the planned expansion of a reading intervention program for at-risk first graders that called for 10 additional teachers.

"They're cutting all these jobs," the teacher said. "Reading is supposed to be really important, and then they're making all these athletic directors into supervisors. How many more supervisors do we need?"

The teachers had spent the past year training for the program, which has about 100 teachers district-wide. But they were told last month that despite their training they would remain in their regular positions next year, said the teacher, who didn't want to be identified.

Of the five athletic directors - Thomas Mullahey of Snyder, Robert Murden of Ferris, Artie Williams of Lincoln, Hugh Dwyer of McNair Academic and Richard Nisbet of Dickinson - Mullahey got the biggest hike, $47,557. Nisbet received the lowest, $18,720.

School officials confirmed they are not expanding the reading program, but said the district had no choice but to promote the athletic directors.

"I know people are upset about the raises, but there are valid reasons," said district spokeswoman Paula Christen.

The athletic directors were in the same union as coaches and teachers, and did not have the power to officially hire, fire, evaluate or supervise the coaches. That duty fell to Michael Venutolo, the district's director of athletics and nurses, Christen said.

But the directors believe they need to have the final say in athletic personnel decisions, and the district agreed - as did the state. Since at least 2003, the state Department of Education has required all new athletic directors to be certified as supervisors and all five of Jersey City's directors have the certification.

Because they are supervisors, the athletic directors were moved out of the teacher's union and into the administrators' union, which has a different salary guide. The lowest salary a supervisor can receive is $101,380 based on the contract, but athletic supervisors who have been in the district for more years were contractually required to get larger pay hikes, Christen said.

The Jersey City athletic director salaries appear to be in line with rates paid elsewhere in the county.

Bayonne's director of athletics makes $104,000. Hoboken's athletic director makes $104,551. Union City has an assistant principal in charge of athletics who makes roughly $130,000 a year, said Union City schools chief Stanley Sanger.

The new salaries took effect on May 22.

Murden said his promotion was necessary to perform his job adequately.

"When you come right down to it, we had no say as to who was hired and fired," Murden said. "I would have to work with the person, and if it did not work out to be a good appointment, I would have to clean up the mess."

Although the contract for Jersey City teachers does not specifically bar members of the same union from supervising each other, the union does not recommend it, said New Jersey Education Association spokesman Steve Baker.