This topic is a placeholder for community members to weigh in regarding the current restructuring going on in the schools. What some people may not understand are the following:
1. Over 20 staff positions are being eliminated. Many of these are direct student facing employees.
2. While our superintendent has just been awarded a new 3 year contract with a ~4% pay RAISE, this restructuring plan has/will be carried out with his proposal and wishes.
3. In addition, our business administrator has been UPGRADED to a 3 year contract as well (previous 8 years were one year contracts) this past December during the severe economic recession WITHOUT involvement from the school board. This position is the ONLY OTHER position along with the superintendent to have a 3 year contract! Coincidentally, the superintendent proposed and recommended this contract change
4. Both superintendent and business administrator are guaranteed a minimum 2.75% pay increases each of the three years.
5. The school board approved 5-2 to enter in the contract with the superintendent WITHOUT properly deliberating or having any written performance evaluation even though it was requested by one school board member.
If you were/are a teacher/staff member in this district, how does the above make you feel? How can you trust that administration and board members are doing the right thing by YOU?!
If you are a resident, how does this affect taxpayer money and overall quality of education for our children? If we are awarding pay raises and guaranteed employment as well as renewals without looking at performance evaluations in administration SAU levels, how can our teachers get the needed resources and budget dollars to directly improve our children's education?
It is this author's opinion that the school board and more intently, the superintendent enact a pay freeze and pay reduction for all administrators/high level staff immediately. I DO SUPPORT fair and equitable pay for our teachers. This is about administration...not teachers!
I don't know when our superintendent will learn. He persists in hiding facts from the public (hoping everyone will just leave him alone, I suppose); and being non-communicative with those that might have differing views than his, where then he and Ms. Portalupi have the choice of back pedaling (Don Maynard) or barreling forward (policy regarding procuring contracts).
ReplyDeleteHe really blew the kindergarten "proposal" and I honestly think at this point he will have a hard time successfully moving forward with anything because the public just doesn't trust him anymore.
Why is he not following policy? A better question might be why are all the policies being re-written (at tremendous legal expense and board time)just since he was hired? Why did he not have the school principals present their budgetary needs directly to the board this year? Why did he promote Ms. Nadeau (a woman he worked with previously and who is very new to this district) to a 2nd in command position, along with Ms. Bolduc, with no teacher or staff input? Why were these new positions not publicly advertised as per policy and best practices?
Mr. Colter can give himself a 3.8 percent raise (with Ms. Portalupi and Mr. Taylor as his helpers), well above the teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and custodians, but he has to earn our trust and respect.
Teachers. Parents. Curricula. These are the three factors that have the most influence on the academic success of a student. Of course, the individual student him/herself is the foundation these factors influence. Note:Administrators are not included in these factors.
ReplyDeleteWhy the outrage? Money is being spent on competitively paid administrators in lieu of supporting academic programming.
Let's take the administrators' pay raises as a case in point. This money could have been used to hire a Spanish language teacher to teach elementary students at Moharimet and Mast Way. This money could have been put towards wish list items like our running track. When the Board decides to fund something over another thing, they are making a statement about District priorities.
The most recent Board procedural missteps reflect the lackadaisical attitude of our Board. Does our Board not believe this is a serious matter? It is imperative that the Board holds the highest level of integrity and demonstrates this through open and clear communication. Moreover, the Board should make decisions that support our students and teachers. (Kudos to those Board members who try to fund our District appropriately.)
I look forward to a new Board who will strive towards policy / procedural adherence and consideration of what truly matters.
Does anyone else find it suspect that the only "staff" the Superintendent is quick to refer to as having given input on the reorganization plan are the same four (Colter, Cox, Nadeau, Bolduc) that will receive raises under the plan? Additionally, isn't it suspect that these same four wrote the new job descriptions? Sounds like a sweet deal to me. Write your job description, give yourself a raise, and not interview for the job. Where does the line form? I'm in! Community members need to contact their Board representative and let them know this is not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteDid you also know that the board met tonight for an emergency meeting to discuss voting on the warrant articles. Apparently, they FORGOT to vote on them in the regular meeting. I cannot believe the lack of due process as well as lack of focus this past year.
ReplyDeleteThis board has time again stayed the course. Well, we should have learned from the last white house administration that staying the course is not always the most prudent choice.
Hopefully, change will be coming in March to this board. It is time to get back to curriculum and educating our children and to restore trust in the board.
Like all other comments, how can we keep giving raises to high level administrators without due process, deliberation, or any performance evaluation. This is getting out of control!
This is a complete mockery of the public trust.
ReplyDelete1. If the Board "does not remember" voting on the contract and there are no
minutes to indicate either way, then that speaks to their competence. They
can't keep proper records? They don't remember details of contract
deliberation for our top administrator? How can they be competent in other
matters?
2. If the Board did not vote on the contract and this was an honest mistake
or misunderstanding, then they should have the integrity to admit it and
take the consequences. What kind of example is this for our children?
3. If the Board did not vote on the contract and there is some dishonesty,
then that is a complete abomination of our process and and outrage. How can
we trust them on other matters involving our tax dollars and leadership of
our schools?
To whom it may concern:
ReplyDeleteI am a resident of the district and have taught in the high school for 29 years. Teachers are evaluated every year. All administrators should be evaluated every year!
Absolutely! This is a reasonable expectation. Also, I believe peer reviews are useful and can provide constructive feedback. Clearly, our Board should implement performance reviews for our Superintendent on an annual basis and the Superintendent should do the same for all administrators. These are baseline practices!
ReplyDeleteAlso, to the Anonymous teacher who just posted, thank you for serving our District! My father taught high school English for 35 years, all at the same school and in the same district. I truly respect and admire your commitment.
Here is the problem that I see. I is all about the money. No one cares about the education anymore. People just think about money, about the budget, about their taxes going to a superintendent. I'm not surprised, as usual, those who control the money get the money. But how does one change that. By taking control of the money? By getting paid to pour over the budget for "wasteful spending"? In my opinion that is wasteful spending. I am not proposing apathy. I am a student at the High School, and I care about the education that I am going to get, that my siblings are going to get, and that everyone after me is going to get. The problem I see is that people care too much about the money and not enough about what we are learning. English electives are too inefficient, so even though people work better in classes they like or choose, a 9th, 10th, 11th and Senior English system saves money. But in my opinion (maybe I am a naive high schooler untainted by the consumeristic world) schools are not businesses. A program does not exist to make money, or to save money, it exists to teach students. You don't only go to high school to get into college. You don't only go to high school to get a good job. I think one of the amazing things about our country is that we have a public school system that allows everyone to become enlightened, enriched and knowledgeable. That is a right for all people. But we are so caught up in watching where every penny goes, so caught up in increasing test scores, that we forget why we are here. At least, why I am here. I'm here to learn.
ReplyDeleteSo, the question becomes, in this world governed by money and scarcity, how do we keep allowing people the right to become enriched and enlightened. A lot of taxpayers feel it not their burden to help high schoolers find themselves, they should do that on their own bill. Meanwhile, there are people all over the place profiting off of the system. But who is it here for? The school is here for the students. Not for anyone else. So do we cut administration? Cut their payrolls? We live in a competitive world, if we want a strong school we have to win the best staff, and that costs salary hikes. And then once we give someone the job to control the money, they will profit off of that power. There is no easy solution, I think we can all agree on that, but I just think, in this endless quest to tighten the budget, we shouldn't forget the students.
Excerpt from Foster's Article today...why is this happening in the town ranks but not the schools!?!?
ReplyDeleteNeither Selig nor other major department heads, including the police and fire chiefs, will be receiving raises to their base wage this year, as a result of the Town Council approving Selig's proposed operating budget.
Selig cut the raises out of the budget as a way to cut spending by $99,123.
"That move was in consideration of the tough economic times," he said. "Durham residents are feeling a real financial crunch, as a result of the economy and the town must be responsive to that."
You heard the School Board candidates tonight - they all agreed that it would have been best for our central office administration to forego the pay raise. Now, the District is locked into 3 year contracts with a guaranteed pay raise band (2.75% to 4%) for Mr. Colter and Mr. Cox going forward. The District will have to de-prioritize certain initiatives in order to meet these contractual obligations going forward.
ReplyDeleteLet's focus on education and academic enrichment!
Money needs to go BACK TO THE CLASSROOM not into administrator pockets. We need to put value on education and not pet projects (see all of the pet projects listed in the $600,000 TIP and CIP articles).
ReplyDeleteWhy are we laying off teachers that bring value to education and spending $200,000 on paving a driveway. Does the driveway help educate the kids? Does a driveway have a family and mortgage to pay? Frankly the driveway at Mast Way is worse than Moharimet but I think you wait to pave if that is how you save teachers! This is the worst economy we have seen in generations and we are laying people, sending them to the unemployment line so that we can have faster computer speed times?
Do we need to take care of our buildings and grounds, of course. But, if projects can wait so that we can preserve families then I advocate people over projects!
Check out all the info about how other project funds have been wasted. It is all over this blog. The administration does not even properly bid out its contracts but we are going to hand them another $600,000 while they leave teachers and other professional/service staff and ultimately the kids of this district out to dry.
What happened to the values of this district? Where are the voices of our Board protesting these outrageous decisions? They are silent.
It is time for some change!