Comments on Our Loudoun Schools: Loudoun: Next to Last for Teachers?

Okay, nice graph....but what about the rest of the...

2009-12-09T05:14:51.071-05:00

Okay, nice graph....but what about the rest of the towns and counties around Loudoun. All of those listed are to the east which doesn't allow anyone to make any valid comparisons for Loudoun. The graph is irrelevant to the discussion.

I looked at the budget after reading the above pos...

2009-12-08T20:56:58.030-05:00

I looked at the budget after reading the above post and that is correct, 40% of the $890 MILLION goes toward "fringe" costs.
76 days of paid leave is a nice benefit that surely should count for something in the calculation. Teaching is a tough job, but the Board of Supervisors must be fiscally responsible and not over react to some of the propoganda out there.

Forgive me for interjecting. Benefits informatio...

2009-12-08T19:18:10.355-05:00

Forgive me for interjecting.

Benefits information across all districts is available in the WABE report to which I provided links. Feel free to write a comparison and I'll post it on this blog.

Neither the school board nor Dr. Hatrick received raises last year.

Do not forget to add nearly 40% in fringe benefits...

2009-12-08T17:09:28.458-05:00

Do not forget to add nearly 40% in fringe benefits to their compensation package. If a starting salary is $44K, that is another $17K to the overall package. John either is trying to seed his agenda by not presenting the entire picture, or he is not as informed as he should be in this matter.

Hatrick and the School Board got their raises last year. Where is the outrage by the teachers?

Nice try skewing the statistics. Loudoun's HIGH PA...

2009-12-08T12:24:15.643-05:00

Nice try skewing the statistics.
Loudoun's HIGH PAYING salaries are known NATIONWIDE. Compare Loudoun's starting salary to districts around the country and tell me where we fit.
Loudoun has no problem recruiting teachers.
Don't kid yourself...Loudoun has its equal share of great teachers and bad ones. The amount you pay doesn't change this.

The reason kids excel here is primarily due to their home life, not what happens at school. This is a highly educated population that values education.

Answer this question: what do you think would happen if you took the children of Loudoun and put them all in DC Public schools and vice versa. All of a sudden, DC Public schools would be excelling and Loudoun's would go down the drain.

All that being said, there probably is some money for raises, if the tens of millions of other fat is trimmed from the budget.

In addition, the amount of NON-TEACHING staff at our schools is ridiculous.

Let me just say this: we have a BOS member who sai...

2009-12-08T09:46:39.742-05:00

Let me just say this: we have a BOS member who said when she ran for office she would support increases as enrollment increased and Cost of living increases then attempted to cut funding to schools.
Loudoun County Schools ended up having millions of dollars taken from their budget to pay for other expenses. When the Board was callled out, Lori Waters claimed that the Schools were GREEDY.
This is not name calling these are the facts.
We need a BOS that honestly appreciates the value of education. This is an investment in our future.
As for cost of living. Loudoun County has one of the, if not the, highest average household incomes in the country.
Cost of living goes up and young teachers are leaving. Think of the cost of training new teachers in terms of human resources and in terms of bring them up to speed in our school system.
We lose teachers and we lose money.
Wake up folks, we have BOS members who do not care about public education.

I do believe teachers deserve good pay and raise m...

2009-12-08T09:37:22.242-05:00

I do believe teachers deserve good pay and raise most years. However, our school board is part of the problem. One, we have many extras at each school which only a small few use. Those smart boards are nice, but almost every classroom has them. And two new schools will be getting that all purpose turf for football/soccer fields, cut back with all the extra admin in all the buildings, perhaps bigger school building would have 1 less HS, MS and ES. I see poor planning, which seems to be out of control for the past 20 years. There is nobody to step back and say here are the boundaries for these ES which feeds into this MS, which feeds into this HS. Seems like we're always trying to put a band aid out there. And how many assistant Principals, guidance counselors, deans does Loudoun need?

To Anonoymous who said TEACHERS NEED TO TALK TO TH...

2009-12-05T09:47:24.523-05:00

To Anonoymous who said TEACHERS NEED TO TALK TO THE SCHOOL BOARD.. . We do. We talk to the Board of Supervisors and the School Board. It's not enough. The BOS claims they allocate money to all citizens and if keeping quality teachers isn't a priority of ALL residents, they cannot respect our wishes. Happened last year, and the year before.

Liz, I am a teacher. I live in my family home whe...

2009-12-04T19:41:48.236-05:00

Liz, I am a teacher. I live in my family home where I grew up, and inherited it. I would like to earn enough money to be able to pay the outrageous Loudoun taxes so I can stay in my ancestral home.

Teachers have to pay taxes too and without raises in anything but taxes this is becoming next to impossible.

I DO NOT believe education is the BOS's priority. They got us into this mess with over-development.

To be clear: I am saying that our county has many ...

2009-12-04T15:18:50.671-05:00

To be clear: I am saying that our county has many priorities.

One of those priorities is a great school system (which we have!)

Others are keeping residents in their homes and providing other essential services to people who need them - such as group homes for adults with developmental delays.

I hope that folks commenting here remember that there are other things that we need to fund and that all departments in the county are getting squeezed to the point where it will harm the providing of services.

I hope that teachers can get raises this year, but I think we need to face that IF they do, it'll come at the expense of some other aspect of the schools budget.

Working Poor: I am sick of this menality that beca...

2009-12-04T12:55:17.880-05:00

Working Poor: I am sick of this menality that because Loudoun is the richest county - according to some skewed statistic on median household income - we should hand over more of our money for wasteful government spending.

If you teachers want to get paid more, then you need to talk to your superintendent and school board. Tell them to free up more money for salaries by cutting the fluff, which will also entail eliminating positions. Offer to teach more students to reduce staff further. I'm all in favor of paying the good teachers more money and getting rid of the not-so-good ones, as well as their positions. But all this is impossible when the number one priority of the school board is to avoid layoffs.

Regarding salaries in Fauquier and Clarke Counties...

2009-12-04T12:27:22.792-05:00

Regarding salaries in Fauquier and Clarke Counties. . . These are still rural areas. Fauquier is largely agricultural. Taxes are extremely low since they had the intelligence to contain growth. Clarke is also very low. Loudoun is NOT.

Loudoun parents want a Mercedes Benz teacher for the cost of a Nissan pickup truck. Doesn't work that way.

Reminder: While Loudoun does have one of the highe...

2009-12-04T11:55:51.795-05:00

Reminder: While Loudoun does have one of the highest median incomes in the country, not everyone in the county is able to afford higher property taxes. We have many long-time residents who are on fixed incomes. Higher taxes for those residents means that they will have to sell their homes.

The Board of Supervisors, the State, and the Federal Government together gave the School Board $800 Million dollars last year.

The money that came from the Board of Supervisors was not earmarked. The School Board gets to decide HOW to spend that money.

So if the School Board decided to pay for 11 assistants to Hatrick, and a dean for every 450 students, that was money that could have been spent on increasing teacher salaries and wasn't.

I serve on the county's Community Services Board which oversees services to some of our most vulnerable citizens (the department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services), and the amount we get from the Board of Supervisors doesn't cover what the School Board spends on busses.

And we've been told to look for cuts of about 10%.

And that doesn't count cuts from the state.

So it seems to me that the School Board can find a way to make the 70% of all county spending that it gets cover the needs of the students and teachers without asking retirees to pay more or taking a larger piece of the county pie.

TO SEW CREATIVE MOM Thank you for offering to hel...

2009-12-04T10:29:51.163-05:00

TO SEW CREATIVE MOM

Thank you for offering to help us. The only recourse now is for mass emailing to BOS@loudoun.gov supporting teacher raises, and showing up and even speaking in support of the teacher raise. Teachers cannot do it alone.

Thank you!

cut the fluff! we don't need spanish in the elemen...

2009-12-04T06:21:22.191-05:00

cut the fluff! we don't need spanish in the elementary school, or in the 6th grade. Do 7th graders really need a high school credit in another language at the expense of English. Bring back 2 blocks of English for our 7th graders and get rid of the foreign language teachers for that grade. Do we really need Chinese language taught to a very small percentage of kids? Do we really need consulting teachers? Do we really need assistants to assistants at the admin level?? What about the transportation budget? Do we really need to send a bus to take kids to school that can walk across the street? AND mostly it would be a step in the right direction if some of our top officials would take a pay CUT! I realize they may work hard but NO ONE works harder than the teachers that are in the classroom EVERYDAY. Take a good hard look at the staff in the administration building-- that should be the first place you make cuts.

Dear Working Poor, I'm sorry that you don't feel l...

2009-12-03T23:38:06.248-05:00

Dear Working Poor,
I'm sorry that you don't feel like you have the support of the parents at your school or the taxpayers in the larger Loudoun community. I too know awesome teachers who can't afford to be homeowners in our county.
I don't presume to know the ins and outs of the LCPS pay and benefit scale, so what do you suggest?

Thanks to all you people out there that selfishly ...

2009-12-03T20:18:15.904-05:00

Thanks to all you people out there that selfishly voted to keep your taxes down in exchange for our salaries last year. Ha! Your taxes increased the same rate and we didn't get a raise either! WE need to pay taxes too you know! And our salaries are making that next to impossible.

As many of you write that salaries for teachers is...

2009-12-03T20:16:41.943-05:00

As many of you write that salaries for teachers is not important to keep the best in our county. . . send your little cuties to school and realize when those adorable little ones are trying to get into college the colleges will laugh at them having a Loudoun County education, and slam the door in her face.

TO: ANONYMOUS CALLING JOHN AN IDIOT. Speak for yo...

2009-12-03T20:08:41.856-05:00

TO: ANONYMOUS CALLING JOHN AN IDIOT. Speak for yourself. Cost of living in Loudoun is NOT less than the surrounding areas. Many teachers I work with cannot afford to live in the county in which they teach. They commute from West Virginia, Winchester and places where they can live on what we get.

LOUDOUN IS THE RICHEST COUNTY! I hear it over and...

2009-12-03T20:05:39.267-05:00

LOUDOUN IS THE RICHEST COUNTY! I hear it over and over again. I see it in the paper, hear it on the news. However, the "RICHEST" county does not support the education of their youngest citizens.

Good teachers WILL move on to greener pastures. You people will be left with the bottom of the barrel. Working in Loudoun in the next couple years will be for all the teachers that cannot get jobs in counties that pay.

WAKE UP LOUDOUN! TEACHERS REALLY TRAINED AND MOTIVATED TO WORK WILL LEAVE! YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE TAUGHT BY WHATEVER IS LEFT.

LOUDOUN IS THE RICHEST COUNTY! I hear it over and...

2009-12-03T20:04:47.447-05:00

I'm tired about reading about the counties here an...

2009-12-03T11:43:58.469-05:00

I'm tired about reading about the counties here and there as well as how their teachers get paid. FACT: The Washington Post ranked Loudoun County the wealthiest county in the United States. FACT its been in the top 3 in the previous several years. FACT Loudoun County teachers aren't even in the top 15 starting salary in the country. FACT 35 years ago a house in Loudoun cost 15K and teachers were paid 5K, a 3:1 ratio. FACT now the cost of a house is around 300K and a teachers salary is 50K a 6:1 ratio. Based on these FACTS the value of teachers salaries has decreased by 50% in comparison to surrounding inflation. Doesn't it make sense the wealthiest county in the country would pay its teachers the highest salaries? I know those annoying facts always get in the way.

How much of this is due to differing tax structure...

2009-12-03T11:39:13.129-05:00

How much of this is due to differing tax structures as well? I used to live in Montgomery County (and can say that Loudoun schools are more consistently good than in MoCo. MoCo has, I think, wider disparities from neighborhood to neighborhood). But Montgomery Cty is not as dependent on real estate property taxes for its budget as Loudoun is. Montgomery has a commercial tax base. They levy an income tax, which is by its nature more tied to people's ability to pay (as property taxes are not -- for awhile there, Loudoun was taxing me for an $800K house when I didn't buy an $800K house and certainly can't afford one).

Montgomery Cty is hurting like all counties are but I have to think that their situation is more stable than ours. Many of these other counties, as well, aren't building lots of new schools, either. Arlington is pretty much built out.

I would love to see our teachers paid more, but we do have to deal with the realities of our situation. We have a lot of schools to build in the next ten years.

FYI - Not included in Mr. Stevens' graph are neigh...

2009-12-03T09:42:39.200-05:00

FYI - Not included in Mr. Stevens' graph are neighboring Fauquier and Clarke counties with starting teacher salaries of $40,000 and $36,500, respectively.

To answer his question, "Is that where we want to be?" Yes. I doubt there will be a mass exodus of teachers because of the unfounded claim that LCPS does not offer competitive pay.

I'm quite certain that the first people to protest...

2009-12-02T21:03:19.458-05:00

I'm quite certain that the first people to protest teacher salaries are the first parents to demand that a teacher provide extra help for their child before or after school hours and who blame the teacher for their child's lack of work ethic or brains.

Someone commented in a different thread that the teachers have a sense if entitlement which made me chuckle. I honestly don't know any teacher that feels that way. However, a good portion of my 120+ students suffer from a sense of entitlement passed on to them by their parents.

Profe