Posts
- The School Board is the sole provider of public education in Loudoun County.
- The School Board provides an excellent quality of public education that is valued by this community at an excellent price. This is repeatedly confirmed by multiple objective metrics (see Feb 25, Feb 16, Feb 2, Jan 3, Oct 11, July 18, July 3).
- The School Board has informed the Board of Supervisors how much it will cost to provide the same quality of education (with modest improvements) next year.
- The Board of Supervisors wants to have the same quality of education but believes it can be done for less, despite all objective evidence to the contrary. Without any other options beyond the School Board, the Supervisors believe that under-funding the school budget forces the School Board to find a way to provide the same quality of education for less money.
We all understand that if they underfund the Sheriff, they'll have fewer deputies patrolling more roads. We all understand that if they underfund the fire department, they'll have older fire trucks fighting more fires.
We need also to understand that if they underfund the Schools, we'll have fewer teachers with more modest skills teaching more children. It's that simple.
6 Comments:
Would you provide the salary chart from the current teachers contract along with a scattergram of where teh current staffing falls within the chart? An additional item to help everyone understand how the pay system works would be to provide the salaries of each teacher for the past 5 years in a spreadsheet for all to see. I know you have to report this to the State already. The teachers names are public information, but if you would prefer to keep that private, please provide a unique identifier for each teacher instead of there name. Providing this would be beneficial to all and would go a long way in showing why you need the budget increase requested.
I have a question for anyone who can answer it.
I was reading in the Daily Press today (newspaper from Hampton Roads area) an article about the State Budget specifically aimed at funding education. The article states:
"At issue is how the state funds teacher salaries, and the financing formula could become a major sticking point as lawmakers from both houses prepare to negotiate how to spend the state's money.
Under the current system, cities and counties are reimbursed if they offer teachers higher raises than what the state decides to spend.
'They're making that decision on their own — and I applaud them for it,' Del Phil Hamilton-(R)said. 'But we're not going to reimburse for local aspirations above and beyond what the law requires.'
Democrats say that approach ignores that locally approved raises are a natural cost of the education program. Opponents of the House plan say it would harm teaching incentives at a time when the state is struggling to keep teachers and attract new ones."
My question is this - if state reimburses localities for the raises in the first place, why is Loudoun's BOS fighting about this funding? If they are looking to cut costs from the budget, it shouldn't come from teachers' salaries, because hey, they are going to be reimbursed for them anyways. Why not take advantage of the law the way it is written now before this reimbursement is cut off in the future. Unless I am misunderstanding the law, which if I am, please someone explain it to me.
Read the whole article here: http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-news_edbudget_0302mar02,0,7133055.story
What's difficult for the public to understand (even with children in the school system) is what affect there would be to have teachers "with more modest skills" teaching our students. It's even more difficult for anyone to determine. If reducing pay raises would lead to that result.
In tough economic times, everyone should be asked to sacrifice. It's unreasonable to ask taypayers to fund increases larger than they themselves receive, once you include benefits. There's a published scale of salaries, including incremental increases from year to year. If a person is hired (and accepts the job) with a certain salary expectation, it's unreasonable to say that we must raise their salary to keep them.
I live with a teacher. I know the kinds of sacrifice she already makes on behalf of her students. I also know that when hard budgets are presented to her, she makes the best that she can out of it.
It's true that over time raw treatment will turn some people away. However, just like any other industry, our government should not expect to "fully fund" a wish list every year without taking into account what's going on all around.
Many businesses implement a pay freeze during tough times, so they can remain afloat. Perhaps it's time the school board adopted a similar strategy to keep the county afloat while we all adjust to the changing economic conditions in the area. We're all getting hit with higher fuel prices, higher food prices, and higher medical costs. These increases have accounted for almost my entire raise this year. Please don't raise my taxes on top of that.
I believe that some of the budget issues are a result of the poor management skills of the Superintendent as well as the old game played by governments at budget time: need=x, ask for 2x and get 1.5x
John, please seriously consider speaking with your collegues about asking Mr. Hatrick to retire and get someone new at the helm - someone from outside the system with experience in managing tight budgets. If nothing else, I think the public and BOS will be more receptive to budget increases if they see someone new who doesn't have a history of empire building asking for it.
When can we expect to see the data I asked for back on the first? If it is on the web somewhere for all to see please share the URL with everyone. I understand some of this may take time, but at least tell everyone when it will be available.
Without adequate data, the public will always question your true motives for asking for so much money. If you really do have the need, then provide the data.
Unfortunately I can't provide responses to all of the comments on the blog. If you have a specific request for information please send me an email or call me (571-223-9810).
Regarding knowing how many teachers are at what level of the pay scale and how much each level gets paid, you can view that in the final pages of the budget Executive Summary, links are on the right-hand side of this block. See pages 25 & 26 (pg 28 & 29 in the PDF), "Teacher's Salary Scale" and "Current Staff Placement (assuming step)" are the page headers. I don't think the teacher-by-teacher list would provide any information that those tables don't already show.
Please also keep in mind that most of the information people request here in comments is available already either on the LCPS website or can be obtained by calling the Public Information office at 571-252-1040.
Post a Comment