State Buget busting my budget!!!

[okeydokey]

It peeves me that corporations like GE don't pay taxes and we are laying off teachers and giving budget cuts to public employees that make 22,000 a year. FL is a huge mess right now. I didn't realize that the recession was the fault of public employees but I guess getting out of it is our responsibility.

 

[AmberHeartsDisney]

In our area they were doing fire departments :/

 

[sssteele]

I have to agree with EKW. Special education costs have soared as more and more personnel have had to be added, and paperwork requirements have skyrocketed. I taught in a school where nearly 40% of students had IEPs. The beauracracy that has evolved as a result of IDEA and "No Child Left Behind" is a fiscal nightmare. Certainly the unforeseen stock market crash and resulting pension problems are huge, but that seems to be the only problem that gets media and taxpayer attention.

 

[StitchBuddy]

EKW is so right! I am a special educator and while I serve about 40 kids total per day spread out over 7 class periods, I am counted in that number where as my fellow regular ed teachers will have about 35 per class which comes out to about 200 students they teach each day. Imagine grading all those high school papers. Plus, they have kids in their classes with modifications that must be followed. So tell me they only work 8-4. NOT! You are right about the paperwork that must be done and kept up with too. Don't get me wrong I LOVE what I do. I primarily teach students that are moderately cognitivelyand physically disabled. So if given a choise between teachers getting laid-off or taking a pay cut, most of us would gladly take a pay cut, because we realize the domino effect this all has, not to mention the poor kids!! I never became a teacher to get rich, I did it because I love teaching kids! In my area they are trying to raise the taxes by $0.13 which comes out to $260 a year for a $200,000 home That is less than $25 dollars a month, you would think we were asking for $2,600 more a year the way people are complaining. We live in an pretty affluent commity too. I just don't get it!!

 

[Kat77]

Our district has not made any announcements but we're worried. I don't get it either Stitchbuddy, as parents we fully support a tax increase.

 

[StitchBuddy]

KAT77 I love your quote!!

 

[skip323]

Just joining in a bit late here. We are in Indiana. Our state government has opted to make villians out of the educators in Indiana...I've never heard of state government actually making their educators to be the villians in a financial situation!!! They have spouted out all kinds of things about class size not mattering (our governor was quoted stating that on a national news program), they are working to end collective bargaining in this state, they are suggesting that the educators go on the state insurance plan... just all kinds of stuff! Meanwhile, a bunch of these people making decisions either 1 - do not have kids, 2- send their kids to private school or 3 - kids already graduated or are near graduating. It is the parents who have elementary kids that stand to have the worst happen to their children in the next decade.

As an educator I cannot believe they are putting us out there in a negative...they have yet to walk into my school or any of the schools my friends work in. I love kids but gosh the behavioral problems and mental health issues abound! WE have been told numerous times that the main kids who are disruptions are our fault not parents. Meanwhile the Indianapolis mayor has advised that these same children who then cause problems downtown on weekend nights are doing so because of the....wait for it.....PARENTS!!!! I'm struggling to figure out how the parents are at fault if kids are serious behavior problems downtown but I am at fault if that child is a serious behavior problem at school . I pay $600 a month in insurance but still have to meet a deductible so........I never actually get to take full advantage of my insurance....we just aren't sick enough! Our classrooms are getting larger every year...I don't know...it makes me sad and a number of us our trying to determine whether it is worth it to stick around (if we are even able to with the cuts happening right now). Problem with leaving? I REALLY like my students...I like what I do...I Hate what the government is doing to us!

As a parent...I am truly afraid. I don't know what to do. My kids are in elementary and I am afraid that they will not get the education they need or, frankly, deserve. My older daughter is in gifted classes which seem to be rather small since kids have to test in but, over time, many kids drop out for various reasons. Things like cafeteria climate (hardly any staff members in the lunchrooms anymore) and such are my concern with her. My other dd struggles tremendously and I am so sad to say that I think I am going to have to pull her and put her in some type of private education. One...I don't have the $$ for it...we haven't gotten raises in years...we struggle like everyone else...and two I am such a huge supporter of public education (the diversity with race/ religion/ socioeconomic level is so neat) and what public education stands for BUT I cannot make my child the "example" by sticking it out when it is not working for her. She is falling further and further behind and her poor teacher is struggling to give small group instruction to an increasingly larger group of kids who need help!! This all just makes me so sad...all of it.....across the country...it is just sad.

 

[torinsmom]

Just joining in a bit late here. We are in Indiana. Our state government has opted to make villians out of the educators in Indiana...I've never heard of state government actually making their educators to be the villians in a financial situation!!! They have spouted out all kinds of things about class size not mattering (our governor was quoted stating that on a national news program), they are working to end collective bargaining in this state, they are suggesting that the educators go on the state insurance plan... just all kinds of stuff! Meanwhile, a bunch of these people making decisions either 1 - do not have kids, 2- send their kids to private school or 3 - kids already graduated or are near graduating. It is the parents who have elementary kids that stand to have the worst happen to their children in the next decade.

As an educator I cannot believe they are putting us out there in a negative...they have yet to walk into my school or any of the schools my friends work in. I love kids but gosh the behavioral problems and mental health issues abound! WE have been told numerous times that the main kids who are disruptions are our fault not parents. Meanwhile the Indianapolis mayor has advised that these same children who then cause problems downtown on weekend nights are doing so because of the....wait for it.....PARENTS!!!! I'm struggling to figure out how the parents are at fault if kids are serious behavior problems downtown but I am at fault if that child is a serious behavior problem at school . I pay $600 a month in insurance but still have to meet a deductible so........I never actually get to take full advantage of my insurance....we just aren't sick enough! Our classrooms are getting larger every year...I don't know...it makes me sad and a number of us our trying to determine whether it is worth it to stick around (if we are even able to with the cuts happening right now). Problem with leaving? I REALLY like my students...I like what I do...I Hate what the government is doing to us!

As a parent...I am truly afraid. I don't know what to do. My kids are in elementary and I am afraid that they will not get the education they need or, frankly, deserve. My older daughter is in gifted classes which seem to be rather small since kids have to test in but, over time, many kids drop out for various reasons. Things like cafeteria climate (hardly any staff members in the lunchrooms anymore) and such are my concern with her. My other dd struggles tremendously and I am so sad to say that I think I am going to have to pull her and put her in some type of private education. One...I don't have the $$ for it...we haven't gotten raises in years...we struggle like everyone else...and two I am such a huge supporter of public education (the diversity with race/ religion/ socioeconomic level is so neat) and what public education stands for BUT I cannot make my child the "example" by sticking it out when it is not working for her. She is falling further and further behind and her poor teacher is struggling to give small group instruction to an increasingly larger group of kids who need help!! This all just makes me so sad...all of it.....across the country...it is just sad.

Yes, it is indeed sad. I am glad that my son is almost done with school, and that our city(not the city I teach in) has smaller class sizes and relatively few behavior problems. Until high school, we were both at a charter school. That might be an option for your DD, if there is a good one close by. Charter schools don't suffer as much with cuts from my experience, because they already get so little. I am thinking of adopting a child in the next few years, and he/she will probably got to charter/schools if I can get them in. You might also want to look into magnet programs if you have them in your area.

We are on a state health plan here in NC, but the state has always paid for the employee only. Now, we are set to have to pay $25/month plus higher co-pays and less coverage. Family rates will go up significantly as well. Ours is a pretty good plan now (BCBS), but it used to have a high deductible, which I never met for my son.

I am worried about numbers going up. I don't think we will be affected in PreK/K, but my colleagues in 1st-3rd grade already had an increase from 23 to 27 average. The number of kids with problems has also increased. At the same time, they take away assistants every year. Somehow our PTA raises money for other areas of the school budget, so that we can hire them back, but I don't think that is an option this year.

Oh, BTW, we are 46th in the country in student achievement and about the same rank in teacher pay. So, yeah, let's add more stress on the kids and teachers and see what happens!

 

[donnaf516]

Dh is a police officer and just got word of layoffs. Planning for the worst but hoping for the best.

 

[DawnM]

Yikes. I hope they don't cut all those pensions though.....I have 17 years in the CA state teachers' retirement plan. I can't receive them for about 20 more years though.

Dawn

I know here in California most of our state budget problems acan come staright back to public union pensions... if something isn't done, in five years 40%- yes that is FOURTY PERCENT of the state's budget will go to pensions. But since Californians don't care to educate themselves before they hit the voting booth, I don't see anything changing.

 

[DisneygirlTeacher]

Sounds like educators aren't valued anywhere anymore. Same thing is happening here in Florida. When "they" say class size doesn't matter, I personally invite every single one of them into a classroom for a week. Of course, no one ever comes. Special Ed here is all but gone. We have those children in the regular ed. classroom now. We have lost all of the Special Ed units at our school because they just place them with us. I wouldn't tell anyone who is getting a degree to get that degree...there just aren't going to be any jobs left. In 2002 the voters here voted for a Class Size Amendment. It took Florida until 2010 (yes, 8 years) to implement that. Now, after only one year, it is under attack. What they don't know, or ask, is that teachers have had their best year yet. I have had 18 students and a helper for an hour and a half a day. We are able to meet with every single child every day and half of our students meet with us more than once for intervention groups. My students that didn't even fully know the alphabet or any sounds are now reading. I have always enjoyed my job, but I can tell you that I am happy I am near the end of my career and not the beginning of it. What is happening to public education is very sad. Just hold your head up high, do your best every day and close your classroom door behind you.

 

[DawnM]

My neighbor went on and on yesterday about how we should ALL support the local public schools wherever we live as that is what keeps them strong and of quality. She then berated me a bit for NOT sending my kids. I am NOT anti-public school, I worked in the school system for almost 17 years, however, I have specific reasons for not sending my kids to the local public school, which I will not discuss with her.

This adds to my reasons for sure, even though overall, our schools are very good. They just aren't good enough for my kids! (Ok, I hope you know I am joking......we don't think we are better than everyone else.)

Dawn

 

[ekatiel]

Another victim of the Texas state budget cuts, here. I work for a Pre-K grant that got completely slashed in the budget. They are working on getting it reinstated, but we won't know until the end of May if that's happened. The real victims are the little pre-k kiddos I help, and their teachers who I mentor. Our grant works by mentoring pre-k teachers in public, headstart, and private childcare (the childcare centers have to be low income to qualify). I work exclusively with childcare teachers-- these teachers are generally uneducated and receive low pay (close to minumun wage), but most of them really care about the kids, and through our grant we are able to teach them how to effectively teach their kiddos. I have childcare teachers with no more than a GED who are using dialogic read aloud strategies with their kids, engaging them in shared and interactive writing, and using assessment results to pull small groups of children for instruction. It's wonderful to see ! The lawmakers will be extremely sad that they cut our grant when in a few years, their costs to retain children in grades K and 1 go through the roof ! It's really sad that governor Goodhair seems to hate four year olds . --Katie

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

It is shameful. And the legislators have made sure to cut us off at the knees for EVERY avenue we would have to make things better. I am SURE teachers don't want furlough days or reduced salaries, I totally get that. On the flip side, having THOUSANDS of teachers laid off all at the same time is going to make it pretty tough for them to find a job - ANY job.

DS15 goes to the Arts magnet high school. There are 58 teachers. Next year they are saying we will have 29 teachers. Yep. HALF. 7 teachers and the librarian took the buy-out incentive to leave, but they will still have to cut something like TWENTY more teachers! It will render the programs completely unable to function. The school requires the kids to take 3 classes every semester in their Art. If each Art ends up with only 2 instructors there is no way they can maintain that! They have already reduced the number of classes from 9 down to 8, so DS will graduate with 3 fewer credits than he would have.

The parents, advisory board, alumni, etc. would be more than happy to pay whatever it would take to maintain the staffing, but NOPE. State says we can't do that! Public schools are FREE. Now, if keeping it free means completely OBLITERATING the school, oh well. There will be NO running a public school on private donations.

Private schools are BIG business around here. That's why they charge $25K per year for high school. And that's IF your child is accepted. Most of them are full, with lengthy waitlists. I'm sorry, but we can't swing $75K to get our son out of high school. And even if we could, I am pretty sure that's not the best use of those funds. He would hate private school.

For every article that runs in the paper or every news story on a website, people comment that the public school parents are mooching scum. We should PAY to educate our children! We are a drain on the GOOD people of Texas! Um, OK. Have any of these cretins READ the TX Constitution? Because *I* didn't write it. I didn't make these rules. If the state said public school parents would now be required to pay the $8000 or whatever it is that the state/district spend per student, FINE. But that's not the way the system works. Public schools have to be FREE! So, no matter how CRAPPY the education will be from a free school, the choices are free public, $25K private, or some kind of home school/online school. Not much of a choice at all.

DH and I both work full time. We pay taxes, we have private health insurance, we only have one child. By and large I don't see how sending our ONE child to public school is such a scourge on society. But then again, what do I know? If I was a decent parent I would send him to private school. Everybody knows that.

 

[MrsPete]

Sounds like educators aren't valued anywhere anymore.

This has always been the case -- it's just been brought to the forefront by the economic crisis. Really, I like my job and don't want to do anything else, but I continue to be surprised at just how much the general public dislike teachers.


Back to the OP's concerns:

Keep in mind that this is something that has ALWAYS happened -- on a smaller scale. This is my 19th year in the classroom, so I've seen it over and over: At this time of year, the administrators don't know about their budget for next year, so they don't know about their teacher allotment yet. They've ALWAYS told new teachers (who aren't yet on a continuing contract) and teachers whose positions are "questionable" because of numbers that they MIGHT NOT have a job next fall. The administrators err on the side of caution, which is right, because they don't yet have all the figures.

Then July 1 rolls around, they get their figures for next year's budget and teacher allotments, and MOST of those teachers are re-hired for the next year. Literally some teachers are hired (or re-hired) the week before school starts or even after students return (in situations where more students than expected report to school, which happens all the time here).

So it's LIKELY that these teachers will be re-hired and class sizes won't skyrocket.

However, to argue the other side of that coin, next year is supposed to be the worst we've had in years and years. Definitely it's going to be the worst since I started teaching. So do the old ways still hold true? Time will tell. I tend to think most of those teachers'll get their jobs back . . . but maybe not quite as many as previous years.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I think this year is unique for a couple of reasons.

Dallas ISD is ALL OVER the place with estimates of shortfall. It could be $253 million, it could "only" be $86 million. Teacher contracts were supposed to be issued by April 14. If the legislature goes into a special session, that pushes things into June/July. If the bills pass by too narrow of a margin they don't go into effect until Sept. 1, AFTER the schools are back in session. There is no word on furlough days or salary reductions, and those would certainly change the outlook.

The deficit is staggering - worse, I think, than in the past.

Once things are hammered out at the state level, the district trustees still have to hammer out how to allocate the paltry funds they DO get. So far the budget proposals are disgraceful. The class size at our school skyrockets to 27:1, where the other high schools stay at 22:1. Aren't we supposed to feel the pinch EQUALLY? What kind of willy nilly formula did they use to determine staffing? It should be a flat percentage district wide. But in addition to the anti-public school sentiment, there is an overlay of anti-magnet school sentiment. That means that whatever the other campuses get, we will get less. Because they can.

 

[lucigo]

This has always been the case -- it's just been brought to the forefront by the economic crisis. Really, I like my job and don't want to do anything else, but I continue to be surprised at just how much the general public dislike teachers.


Back to the OP's concerns:

Keep in mind that this is something that has ALWAYS happened -- on a smaller scale. This is my 19th year in the classroom, so I've seen it over and over: At this time of year, the administrators don't know about their budget for next year, so they don't know about their teacher allotment yet. They've ALWAYS told new teachers (who aren't yet on a continuing contract) and teachers whose positions are "questionable" because of numbers that they MIGHT NOT have a job next fall. The administrators err on the side of caution, which is right, because they don't yet have all the figures.

Then July 1 rolls around, they get their figures for next year's budget and teacher allotments, and MOST of those teachers are re-hired for the next year. Literally some teachers are hired (or re-hired) the week before school starts or even after students return (in situations where more students than expected report to school, which happens all the time here).

So it's LIKELY that these teachers will be re-hired and class sizes won't skyrocket.

However, to argue the other side of that coin, next year is supposed to be the worst we've had in years and years. Definitely it's going to be the worst since I started teaching. So do the old ways still hold true? Time will tell. I tend to think most of those teachers'll get their jobs back . . . but maybe not quite as many as previous years.

Question...if a teacher doesn't have a contract for the next year can they draw unemployment over the summer?

 

[torinsmom]

Another victim of the Texas state budget cuts, here. I work for a Pre-K grant that got completely slashed in the budget. They are working on getting it reinstated, but we won't know until the end of May if that's happened. The real victims are the little pre-k kiddos I help, and their teachers who I mentor. Our grant works by mentoring pre-k teachers in public, headstart, and private childcare (the childcare centers have to be low income to qualify). I work exclusively with childcare teachers-- these teachers are generally uneducated and receive low pay (close to minumun wage), but most of them really care about the kids, and through our grant we are able to teach them how to effectively teach their kiddos. I have childcare teachers with no more than a GED who are using dialogic read aloud strategies with their kids, engaging them in shared and interactive writing, and using assessment results to pull small groups of children for instruction. It's wonderful to see ! The lawmakers will be extremely sad that they cut our grant when in a few years, their costs to retain children in grades K and 1 go through the roof ! It's really sad that governor Goodhair seems to hate four year olds . --Katie

We have public PreK at our school and it makes a HUGE difference! I have the kids from PreK-K. Some parents put their PreK's with us and then move them to their base schools for K, and I get K's in their place who have not had PreK or any type of preschool. It is almost impossible to get these kids to where the state expects them to be when they come in not knowing 1-5 or any letter sounds. The K's who are with me in preK learn 1-20, letter sounds, colors, shapes, and learn how to write letters and numbers. I think PreK is more important that 12th grade and would love to see the systems add in universal PreK and have high school go through only 11th grade. That's just me though.

It is shameful. And the legislators have made sure to cut us off at the knees for EVERY avenue we would have to make things better. I am SURE teachers don't want furlough days or reduced salaries, I totally get that. On the flip side, having THOUSANDS of teachers laid off all at the same time is going to make it pretty tough for them to find a job - ANY job.

DS15 goes to the Arts magnet high school. There are 58 teachers. Next year they are saying we will have 29 teachers. Yep. HALF. 7 teachers and the librarian took the buy-out incentive to leave, but they will still have to cut something like TWENTY more teachers! It will render the programs completely unable to function. The school requires the kids to take 3 classes every semester in their Art. If each Art ends up with only 2 instructors there is no way they can maintain that! They have already reduced the number of classes from 9 down to 8, so DS will graduate with 3 fewer credits than he would have.

The parents, advisory board, alumni, etc. would be more than happy to pay whatever it would take to maintain the staffing, but NOPE. State says we can't do that! Public schools are FREE. Now, if keeping it free means completely OBLITERATING the school, oh well. There will be NO running a public school on private donations.

Private schools are BIG business around here. That's why they charge $25K per year for high school. And that's IF your child is accepted. Most of them are full, with lengthy waitlists. I'm sorry, but we can't swing $75K to get our son out of high school. And even if we could, I am pretty sure that's not the best use of those funds. He would hate private school.

For every article that runs in the paper or every news story on a website, people comment that the public school parents are mooching scum. We should PAY to educate our children! We are a drain on the GOOD people of Texas! Um, OK. Have any of these cretins READ the TX Constitution? Because *I* didn't write it. I didn't make these rules. If the state said public school parents would now be required to pay the $8000 or whatever it is that the state/district spend per student, FINE. But that's not the way the system works. Public schools have to be FREE! So, no matter how CRAPPY the education will be from a free school, the choices are free public, $25K private, or some kind of home school/online school. Not much of a choice at all.

DH and I both work full time. We pay taxes, we have private health insurance, we only have one child. By and large I don't see how sending our ONE child to public school is such a scourge on society. But then again, what do I know? If I was a decent parent I would send him to private school. Everybody knows that.

You have to be creative. Our PTA wrote grants for some other expenses at our school(technology and some other things) and then the school used the money budgeted for those things to re-hire the assistants. Our school has multi-age classrooms, so we really need that extra adult to facilitate 2-3 different curricula simultaneously

 

[Planogirl]

Dh is a police officer and just got word of layoffs. Planning for the worst but hoping for the best.

Wow. When I hear about police officers and firemen and such public servants who are vital possibly being laid off, it amazes me. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[LilyWDW]

While I am not a teacher nor have kids in the school system, I do understand what everyone is saying. This semester I have been doing all my research on the current state of the educational system from a business perspective (I am an MBA student). I have read hundreds of research and journal articles on benchmarking in education, quality control, NCLB, statistical data, and more. The information that I have found through these journals and by my own research are pretty amazing, though some of it was opposite of what I would have expected.

As such, I am surprised at the information and assumptions that many government officials are spreading (okay, maybe "surprised" is not the right word, but they are obviously finding information that I have not and I would like to be able to review their sources). Pupil/student ratio having no impact? Ummm... not according to what I have seen. However, I will say this... it is not as easy as saying that low ratios will solve things because there are simply too many variables in the equation. It does seem to have a statistical significance, but there are more things having an impact then just the ratio.

I would suggest that anyone with an interest to do some research.