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The raise was modest, and the superintendent himself said he wasn’t asking for more. Yet before the Marblehead School Committee set John Robidoux’s 2026-27 salary, he made sure the record showed and to explain how far below the regional market he believes that figure sits.
Minutes before the School Committee voted June 22 to set his salary for the coming year, the superintendent of Marblehead Public Schools laid out a comparison he said he had drawn from 17 North Shore communities: an average superintendent salary of about $246,000 this year, rising to roughly $253,000 next year with a typical raise. His own approved figure, he said, would land about $32,000 below that.
"I'm way below market value," Robidoux said.
The School Committee voted 5-0 to amend his contract and set his salary at $221,450 for July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027 — a 3 percent increase on his $215,000 first-year salary, or $6,450 more. The figure replaces the "to be determined" line that had sat in the second year of his three-year contract since it took effect July 1, 2025.
The vote had a deadline behind it. Robidoux's contract requires the School Committee to set his second-year pay on or before June 30, and Chair Kate Schmeckpeper opened the discussion by noting as much. "The contract requires the committee to set his compensation on or before June 30," Schmeckpeper said.
The number itself was settled weeks earlier. The School Committee had folded a 3 percent raise for Robidoux into the fiscal year 2027 budget it approved, and several members treated the vote as bookkeeping.
"This feels a little bit just like an administrative, like documenting what was already approved previously," said Melissa Clucas, a School Committee member.
Henry Gwazda, also a School Committee member, agreed, pointing to Robidoux's evaluation and the approved budget. Ann-Marie Jordan, another member, said she had read through the superintendent's evaluation, his progress toward his goals and the raises in the teacher contract before deciding the figure fit. "I see that as in line," Jordan said. Member Al Williams said he supported the increase. When the roll was called, Williams, Jordan, Gwazda, Clucas and Schmeckpeper all voted in favor.
Robidoux, finishing the first year of the contract, said plainly that he did not want to reopen the number. "I'm not looking to, you know, change that number," he said, citing the budget climate. But he wanted his market comparison on the record, casting it less as a grievance than as a warning about what the district would face if it ever had to find a replacement.
"If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and someone has to be hired, you're looking at that range, not where I am," he said.
The regional figures were his own, gathered from communities he said he reviewed himself, and were not independently confirmed at the meeting. Robidoux said he was staying put. "I'm not planning on going anywhere," he said, adding that he was happy in Marblehead and with the School Committee's support. He also noted he had finished his doctorate, with minor revisions left to complete.
Only the middle year is settled. The contract still lists Robidoux's third-year salary, covering July 1, 2027, through June 30, 2028, as "to be determined," and requires the School Committee to set it on or before June 30, 2027. It cannot come in below the $221,450 just approved, the same floor that kept the second year from dropping beneath the first.
The contract carries other terms that stay in place: a one-time $7,000 annuity payment around June 30, 2028, if Robidoux is still superintendent then; 25 vacation days a year; up to 90 carried-over sick days; up to $5,000 in documented expense reimbursement; a $625 auto allowance paid in September, December, March and June; and up to $2,000 in tuition reimbursement each year.
Schmeckpeper said she would work with legal counsel to finish the amendment. Robidoux said it would not take much — he already had a draft addendum ready to sign.
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