Lee County Schools

What the Numbers Say About Lee County Schools

Lee County Schools is a small-to-mid-sized school district in North Carolina, serving 9,241 students at an estimated per-pupil spending of $12,597. Estimated average teacher salary — derived from instructional expenditure variable Z33 divided by teacher FTE — is $80,852, placing the district in the lower-spending tier of NCES F-33 respondents. NCES LEAID 3702560 references the FY2022 Common Core of Data Local Education Agency Finance Survey.

Relative to the North Carolina statewide average of $77,115, teacher pay in Lee County Schools runs roughly in line with the state benchmark — a 4.8% gap, and near the national instructional-salary estimate of $82,292 (1.8% differential). Among enrolling districts in North Carolina, it pays more than 64% of them. Licensing reciprocity, collective bargaining strength, and state aid formulas all contribute to where a district lands in these tiers.

On the budget side, Lee County Schools reports $116.4M in total expenditure against $143.3M in revenue, with instructional salaries accounting for 43% of spending — a compensation-to-budget ratio that signals how much of each tax dollar reaches classroom educators. Regular-program teacher salary outlay is $18.2M, special-education teacher pay is $3.0M. These figures are district-level aggregates from F-33, not individual contracts — step-and-column schedules, stipends, and collectively-bargained differentials sit underneath these totals.