Pay soars for headmasters at Mass. prep schools

Headmasters of the Bay State's elite prep schools now command such high pay and perks, including low-interest home loans, that a few surpass the pay of some university and college heads.

Pay packages that five years ago were still in the $200,000 range are leaping past the $300,000 mark at some schools, making Massachusetts headmasters among the highest-paid in the nation, according to federal financial records and the National Association of Independent Schools.

The pay reflects how the job of running an elite prep school has changed over the years.

The modern headmaster, rather than acting mostly as lead teacher, has become more like a chief executive, jetting to places such as Hong Kong and Switzerland to recruit students and raise money for multimillion-dollar endowments. At the same time, they keep the role they've always had -- shepherding as many students as possible to Ivy League schools.

''I'm not just saying it's 24-seven -- it literally is," said Cathleen Everett, spokeswoman for Milton Academy, where the salary and benefits of Head of School Robin Robertson has gone from nearly $250,000 a year in 2001-02 to roughly $340,000 a year in 2003-04. ''The combination of demands are so disparate and so exhausting."

Barbara L. Chase, the headmaster of Phillips Academy in Andover, made the most among the leaders of the largest private preparatory boarding and day schools in the state -- $414,008 in pay and benefits, according to the financial reports the tax-exempt school, a nonprofit organization, filed with the Internal Revenue Service in 2003-2004, the most recent year available. The Globe examined the 11 largest schools. Northfield Mount Hermon School's report was unavailable.

Milton Academy's headmaster was the next highest earner. Phillips Academy's compensation package has increased by more than $80,000 over the past few years, and Milton's has increased by roughly $90,000. Phillips and Milton, both boarding schools, serve about 1,000 students each.

By comparison, the chancellor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, John V. Lombardi, earns a total of $267,500 for overseeing 25,000 students.

The headmasters of Phillips and Milton, who declined to be interviewed for this article, both also have home loans from the schools at favorable interest rates.

Deerfield Academy's headmaster Eric Widmer -- the third highest paid of the largest schools in the Bay State -- also secured a loan, but he did not return telephone calls for details about it.

The home-loan perk is legal, but it is increasingly under scrutiny at nonprofits nationwide, said Thomas McLaughlin, senior manager at the Boston office of Grant Thornton, an accounting and consulting firm that works with nonprofits. The issue is whether organizations that receive tax breaks should be allowed to give favorable loans to their staff, he said.

''It looks awkward," McLaughlin said.

But Milton and Phillips school officials say the headmasters are required to live on campus and were granted the loans so that they would have a home once they leave. Phillips offers the slightly more favorable rate to all faculty, said Oscar Tang, president of the board of trustees.

''It's just meant to help them to be able to buy a house," Tang said.

In 2000, Phillips gave Chase a $373,500 loan at a floating interest rate, which was 4.6 percent in 2003-04. Milton granted Robertson a $550,000 loan at 3.02 percent interest in 2002. For regular homebuyers, conventional interest rates ranged from nearly 6 to 7 percent in the past few years.

School trustees compare the salaries of headmasters across the nation to compete with similar schools, a practice that has become easier over the past decade with the advent of online databases such as GuideStar.org, a group that makes the nonprofits' annual financial reports available to the public. The Globe compared salaries on GuideStar.org from 2001-2002 to 2003-2004, the most recent available.

Headmasters' pay in 2003-2004 ranged from nearly $174,000 at the Bancroft School in Worcester to more than $400,000 at Phillips Academy. In 2001-02, pay ranged from about $137,000 at Worcester Academy to almost $330,000 at Phillips.

Tang said Chase resisted having her salary increased, but board members insisted after they determined that her pay package lagged behind her peers' at a select group of Northeast boarding schools. The top salary in the nation is unclear, but in 2003-2004 the headmaster of the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut earned more than $480,000 in salary and benefits.

Phillips Academy, which counts President Bush and his father among its alumni, is considered one of the most prestigious in the country, with tuition around $33,000 a year.

Nationally, headmasters' salaries are on the rise, fueled by demand for a small group of candidates, said Patrick F. Bassett, president of the independent schools association, which tracks salary data. The national median salary was $159,465 in 2003-2004. This year, the salary is $175,000, up 42 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars from 10 years before.

''In the last couple of decades, the job of head of school is the job of a CEO," Bassett said.

Decades ago, headmasters were the lead teachers, focused more on studies than anything else. Though many have traveled and raised funds for years, Bassett said the demands grew more intense in the early 1990s when birth rates started to slide and private schools couldn't rely on a steady stream of qualified applicants. At the same time, pressure increased on schools to borrow money to build state-of-the-art science wings, computer labs, and student centers.

Today's headmaster cultivates alumni by tracking them in electronic databases, inviting them to sit on boards or visit campus, or chatting with them about the school in their offices or at cocktail parties and dinners. Eventually, the hope is the long-running contact will create a close-knit community, and yield big donations for the school.

Milton Academy's headmaster, for instance, raised $11 million last school year while presiding over a 125-acre campus and grappling with parents and students upset over a scandal at the school. Last school year, five students were expelled and charged with statutory rape after it was revealed that they had oral sex with a 15-year-old female student. They reached a deal in court to undergo counseling, perform community service, and serve at least two years probation.

This year alone, Robertson will spend a third of the time on the road, traveling to Hong Kong, Seattle, London, and other cities to recruit students and raise money.

Headmasters are expected to be available for students around the clock, either to talk to or tutor them. Headmasters who live on campus have students over for snacks or host parties for alumni in their homes.

Many, such as Robert P. Henderson Jr., head of Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, still teach classes. His salary and benefits have risen from $254,000 to past $300,000 in 2003-2004, an amount he says is less than it appears because around 10 percent of the package is deferred until he leaves the school. He said he lives in a four-bedroom home on campus and drives a Subaru station wagon. He ranked fourth in pay among the largest schools.

Still, he says, he juggles the European history class he teaches with an $86 million fund-raising campaign for the school, which serves mainly day students.

''It's a much more complex, far more demanding job than it probably was 30 years ago," he said.

Headmasters are also under increasing scrutiny. In June, Craig Anderson, head of St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., whose salary and benefits ranged from $400,000 to $500,000 in recent years, resigned following scrutiny of the school's finances.

Peter W. Schandorff, a 1964 graduate of Phillips Academy, said he supports the rising salaries for strong leaders because Phillips's programs profoundly changed his life. The son of a paper salesman and housewife from Des Moines, he attended Phillips on a scholarship from his hometown newspaper. He studied with George W. Bush, graduated and went on to Harvard, the first in his family to attend college.

''You want to get some top people to come in to head the school," said Schandorff, now an Asian studies teacher at a Missouri private school who donates to his alma mater. ''They're not just making widgets. They're producing presidents."