What should be cut first?

[MM27]

Teaching is a salaried position. Salaried positions require an employee to work whatever hours are necessary to complete the job. If a teacher is required to work more hours they are not being expected to do so for free, it's part of their salareid position.

I don't need to shadow a teacher to know what one in my area *goes through* nor am I sadly ignorant about the teaching profession. My next door neighbor teaches HS math and I have a teacher that works for me very PT to get our lucrative discount and they both talk freely about their teaching positions. They get the occasional unreasonable parent but nothing more difficult than what other professionals have to deal with with dissatisfied customers.

She occasionally brings work home but most professionals in other fields do this, as well . Add in all the time off not to mention no nights or weekends (with the exception of parent teacher conferances 4 x a year) and her 70K (as an elementary level teacher) ends up being approx. $50 an hour.

I do have a suggestion for cutting costs in schools. Get rid of the teachers unions accross the country. It will save money for everyone, teachers included, and then teachers, like the rest of the American workers, not protected by unions, will be promoted, given raises, or terminated based on their preformance.

dsny1mom

As far as the hours go, no I'm not required to work extra hours. I do it because I am not one of those teachers that sits at my desk and completes my planbook or grades papers while my students do busy work. I am required by contract to be at school at a certain time and stay until a certain time. I am currently teaching at a Saturday Academy. I get a stipend for that because it's not a part of my contract. Same for summer school or after school tutorials and coaching. I did do the school yearbook for a few years and that was done on my own time for no extra pay because I'm an elementary teacher and we don't get extra for that kind of thing.
What professions require employees to bring work home? I only ask because every time a teacher mentions bringing work home, someone says that almost EVERY profession does too, but nobody ever mentions what those professions are.

The union is in place to protect us from administrators that would otherwise force us to do things that are not part of our contracted job. Non-tenured teachers have it happen all the time to them. Administrators know they won't complain because if they do they will not make it another year.
I had an administrator one year that would give us something to do right before a vacation with a due date of the day we returned. We put in a grievance and got the union involved and she backed down. If the union wasn't there, she would continue with things like this and start piling more and more on top of that.

If a married couple teach in the same district, only one should be eligible for benefits (family plan) and the other should NOT receive financial remuneration for the benefits. The spouse of a fellow teacher gets $$$ for not taking benefits even though their husband/wife is in the same system and a family plan covers the family.

I would make people pay extra for family coverage. School districts should cover the employee, nobody else. If you want family coverage it should be available at an additional cost. I have single coverage and what they are paying for me vs. a family amounts to about $7000 more a year. I have a friend at school who is married to a cop and she turned down our benefits because her husband's plan is much better. She gets money back each year for not getting coverage.

 

[DawnCt1]

I guess I was teaching in the wrong state. After 18 years of teaching I was only making 42K a year. The last year I taught (2009 - 2010) I spent 8K on classroom supplies/materials in order to create lessons that were fun and engaging. We are only alowed to take $250 deduction on our taxes.

My typical day was be at work at 7:30 and leave school at 4 in order to pick up my dd from school and son from daycare. After the kids were in bed, I would then work on more school work until midnight, sometimes 1 AM. I also spent most of my weekends doing work for school.

Yes I was a salaried employee with a contract. So, I did do what was necessary in order to provide. In the two different states where I have taught, neither had teacher unions.

So you can't judge all teachers from the 2 you know. Maybe these two aren't doing their jobs well.

Some states pay better than other states. School disctricts within those states pay better than other districts. Ct. is at the top of the pay scale. DS#3 has a degree in history and graduated with the intention of getting certified to teach in Ct. He now has other plans, but while he is waiting to act on those plans, he is a full time substitute teacher. Ct. now requires all subs to have a Bachelors Degree. In a small high school, there is plenty of work for him. He is able to competently teach a variety of classes, especially history and enjoys his time there. He gets no benefits, just a per diem rate. He has decided that through this experience however, his "plan B" is a more attractive at this time.

 

[taylor3297]

I don't judge all teachers by the two I know. I clarified this by using the words "my area".

But you know taking jabs at other teacher's abilities do nothing to rectify the financial problems most school districts are dealing with.

I could easliy say to you, perhaps the teachers I know don't have to burn the midnight oil because they do their jobs so well. But I won't.

dsny1mom

You just did.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Any job that is dependent on tax revenues is in danger because people without money can't pay taxes. In some parts of the country 20% of people are either un-employed or under-employed. How are these people going to pay their taxes? Well, they are not. The only people that don't seem to realize this are the budgeting people because they keep writing imaginary budgets with imaginary monopoly money. If you have $1,000,000 and 10 employees everyone gets $100,000 but reduce that budget to $500,000 and you either have 10 people making $50,000 or 5 people making $100,000.

At this point taking a reduction is salary would be the reasonable thing to do because it would salvage jobs. Unfortunately, people are not particularly reasonable. As a result I suspect our schools are going to look remarkably different next September and many many teachers & other municipal employees will be joining the ranks of the unemployed. The schools will have no choice but to cut back,the resources will dry up and those left teaching will have to deal with classes becoming more crowded with less cared for children because social services is taking a hit too. The only saving grace will be that the families who can afford to do so will inevitably pull their kids out of public schools and put them in private schools which will alleviate the strain on resources. But people will be slow to act so things will get worse before they get better and we find a new equilibrium.

This isn't seeing into the future, Economics is simply about following the dominoes... sometimes I wish it wasn't so cut and dry, but if history has taught us anything it's that those who refuse to learn from it are doomed to repeat it.

That said, I think it is a dangerous assumption to think salary is equated with ability right now. At the moment many people are struggling and it has nothing to do with their worth either as professionals or as people..

 

[HsvTeacher]

I don't judge all teachers by the two I know. I clarified this by using the words "my area".

But you know taking jabs at other teacher's abilities do nothing to rectify the financial problems most school districts are dealing with.

I could easliy say to you, perhaps the teachers I know don't have to burn the midnight oil because they do their jobs so well. But I won't.

dsny1mom

 

[happygirl]

In our district when teachers have insevrices. The school are closed those days.


I like the pay for play idea for sports.

Go to 4 day school week. I know that many schools here are considering that.

Do away with summer school for fun. Just have it for the kids that need to make up credits or kids that need tutorting.

Stop all the field trips. I think my daughter goes somewhere atleast once a month.

Schools need to look for more grants. There are so many out there for schools.

 

[golfgal]

Here are some ways I would cut money:

1. Do away with our superintendent's car allowance due to an already absurdly high amount of salary. By cutting the car allowance, the system could afford the salary of an instructional assistant.

2. Only have one assistant superintendent. We currently have three. Our system is big, but not big enough for three assistants.

3. Only one shared administrative assistant for the superintendent and assistant superintendent(s).

4. Cut "curriculum specialist" jobs from the schools. They get paid an awfully big salary to chat and gossip all day. (Unfortunately, I believe they are paid from Title I money.)

5. Downsize the amount of reading coach positions. They have a lot of free time, and two or three schools could share a reading coach. (Our reading coach is always complaining that she is bored.)

6. Very, very little of our school budget is spent on sports, but what is spent should be pulled. Booster clubs fund most of our sports, so they would most likely be able to kick in the extra money.

7. Cut back in the maintenance departments. Do we really need two painters to paint a five-foot wall? Should it really take them (and I kid you not) a week to paint the five-foot wall?

8. Maintenance employees should not be allowed to drive service trucks home at night and on the weekend. If they are on call, they should drive there personal calls for the emergencies that NEVER happen.

9. Cut back on employees in the central office. Many of the departments are over-staffed, but for some reason, our system will not let any of them go.

10. Temporarily halt new building construction and use capital improvement/repairs money to make sure we have enough teachers for next year. What good is a new building if we don't have the teachers to staff it and the students to fill it? Does that wall really need to get painted?

11. Going along with the above statement, we wouldn't need new schools if our system would get out from under the federal desegregation order we have been under since the 60s. They would be able to redraw zone lines to fill empty buildings and alleviate overcrowding in the full ones. We would also be able to cut transportation costs, since we would no longer have to bus students across town. The city has self-segregated itself anyway, so the order is now useless.

12. Do away with or downsize bus service and charge for students who choose to go to schools out of their zone. (See above order) Our system pays $48,000 per bus route, some of which only carry ONE student. Some of them carry less than five students.

1. So then you pay per mileage for the superintended to drive from school to school-which will cost the school MORE (this is NOT an uncommon expense for ANY JOB).

2. How large is your district, do you watch the assistant superintendents work, do you know what their workload is that you can make this statement?

3. Are you in the office daily and see their workload--can one person handle that work load or are you just assuming they can. Are you going to offer extra compensation for the one that just had their workload tripled?

4. This shows how little you know about this job in general-unless the curriculum specialist is for the Title I program they cannot cross fund programs like this. Do you have ANY idea how much work is involved in developing a curriculum?

5. We don't have reading coaches but is she is truly bored, fine, cut back, that will save your district about $5000, maybe.

6. So do you buy from the fundraiser that your booster club has? The "extra" they can kick in would have to come from more fundraisers and personally, I would rather my taxes go up a couple hundred each year then have to do more fundraisers.

7. You spent a week watching 2 men paint a 5 foot wall, really?

8. Do you have a scanner or something that you monitor your maintenance departments calls? Again, if they drive their personal cars for work, the district will have to add them to the district insurance policy AND reimburse them for mileage--it is less expensive to have them drive the school vehicles.

9. Again, you are in the office daily so you know how busy everyone is, right?

10. It is against the law to use capital budgets for operating expenses, but you knew this because you are so well versed on how schools work.

11. I agree that if the district is busing kids all over that should stop.

12. You ride all of these buses everyday so you do a head count? Again, busing is a way to save money however, based on your examples it sounds like you live in a low income district and if buses were not available or if they charged people to ride the bus, kids would simply not go to school and that will cost a LOT more in the long run.

 

[dsny1mom]

You just did.

What I said was not directed at the OP. Therefore what I did say about the comment stands.

dsny1mom

 

[qtwns]

To the people who are suggesting cuts in teacher salaries/benefits:

Don't you want the best to teach your children and other youth? Do you really think that the best will be attracted to low salaries and crappy benefits? To get the best you need to have to make them want to teach there.

How many of you have been in a school to actually see what happens since you yourself graduated? It is drastically different than even just 10 yrs ago. Kids are different, demands are different, laws are different.

Those that feel that teachers should do more with less money a la RI , if your boss told you to work 3-4 days a week more than you do now with no extra pay, are you telling me you would be ok with it? Teachers routinely work outside contracted work hours by choice, but to require it with no compensation is ridiculous.

Whoever said their district got rid of the planning period for teachers, how is that good? When will they be able to contact parents, discuss needs of students with other teachers to get the student the services he/she needs, or actually plan? Planning isn't just a 5 minute thing. Many times planning includes finding or making materials, not just writing p.52. Objectives and standards must also be determined.

Education is not the cushy job that some make it out to be. The cuts need to come from outside of education.

Bravo!

 

[golfgal]

Some states pay better than other states. School disctricts within those states pay better than other districts. Ct. is at the top of the pay scale. DS#3 has a degree in history and graduated with the intention of getting certified to teach in Ct. He now has other plans, but while he is waiting to act on those plans, he is a full time substitute teacher. Ct. now requires all subs to have a Bachelors Degree. In a small high school, there is plenty of work for him. He is able to competently teach a variety of classes, especially history and enjoys his time there. He gets no benefits, just a per diem rate. He has decided that through this experience however, his "plan B" is a more attractive at this time.

So in one post you say how expensive it is to live in CT then the next you have the highest paid teachers, well, one would follow the other, wouldn't it. If you go by this chart: http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state where the COL is figured into the equation, CT are paid middle of the road for the US with the rest of the NE states coming in at the bottom.

Any job that is dependent on tax revenues is in danger because people without money can't pay taxes. In some parts of the country 20% of people are either un-employed or under-employed. How are these people going to pay their taxes? Well, they are not. The only people that don't seem to realize this are the budgeting people because they keep writing imaginary budgets with imaginary monopoly money. If you have $1,000,000 and 10 employees everyone gets $100,000 but reduce that budget to $500,000 and you either have 10 people making $50,000 or 5 people making $100,000.

At this point taking a reduction is salary would be the reasonable thing to do because it would salvage jobs. Unfortunately, people are not particularly reasonable. As a result I suspect our schools are going to look remarkably different next September and many many teachers & other municipal employees will be joining the ranks of the unemployed. The schools will have no choice but to cut back,the resources will dry up and those left teaching will have to deal with classes becoming more crowded with less cared for children because social services is taking a hit too. The only saving grace will be that the families who can afford to do so will inevitably pull their kids out of public schools and put them in private schools which will alleviate the strain on resources. But people will be slow to act so things will get worse before they get better and we find a new equilibrium.

This isn't seeing into the future, Economics is simply about following the dominoes... sometimes I wish it wasn't so cut and dry, but if history has taught us anything it's that those who refuse to learn from it are doomed to repeat it.

That said, I think it is a dangerous assumption to think salary is equated with ability right now. At the moment many people are struggling and it has nothing to do with their worth either as professionals or as people..

So you bring up economics, cutting salaries had a negative effect as well. It reduces spending power for those individuals, thus, creating more havoc in the economy. The WORST thing that can be done in a bad economy is to cut salaries but it always the first thing that happens.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Personally, if I could cut anything - I'd cut the school board. The teachers, the principals, they're all great. It's the bureaucrats we could all do without.

Don't know about where you live, but in most locales, school board members are elected. If you're not happy with the performance, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. If your board is elected, run for office, and find others of similar mindsets to run as well. If you don't want to run, find candidates and campaign for them. If your board is appointed, work to change THAT.

 

[golfgal]

Don't know about where you live, but in most locales, school board members are elected. If you're not happy with the performance, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. If your board is elected, run for office, and find others of similar mindsets to run as well. If you don't want to run, find candidates and campaign for them. If your board is appointed, work to change THAT.

It's all about a system of checks and balances. I don't always agree with everything our school board does but they do, for the most part, work for the better of the district as a whole.

Our state funding to our schools is on the chopping block because of our extremely narrow minded governor. Our school board is working hard to keep jobs and minimize the impact but most people I know would support a tax increase to cover the loss--which amounts to about $100/year/household in our district so not much at all. The problem is the state has a stupid law on the books that all school referendums have to be within a certain percentage of the lowest referendum and we are close to that max already. Having moved from a community that has to fight tooth and nail to get ANYTHING done in the schools it was quite refreshing to move to a community where the schools needed the money and people gave it. Now they can't ask for more and it is really sad.

Our district wins awards every year for fiscal responsibility. Our per pupil funding is right at the state average yet we have been in the black for years and years. We have twice the reserve amount as required by law. We are a VERY financially healthy district, until the state puts the handcuffs on you, cuts $19 million from your funding and doesn't allow you to generate that extra to cover the loss.

 

[kaytieeldr]

1. So then you pay per mileage for the superintended to drive from school to school-which will cost the school MORE (this is NOT an uncommon expense for ANY JOB).

Does the superintendent drive from school to school on a regular basis? Does she or he do any large amount of work-related driving? Isn't the current reimbursement rate (for tax purposes) about fifty cents per mile? Without knowing how much work-related driving this person does, it'd be difficult to determine how many miles would need to be driven before a mileage reimbursement would be less cost-effective than the current car allowance. I'd think, though, it'd have to be a LOT. An average 100 miles a day, every day, every week, would be a $13,000 reimbursement.

5. We don't have reading coaches but is she is truly bored, fine, cut back, that will save your district about $5000, maybe.

$5,000 at minimum wage would mean this reading coach works less than twenty hours a week - and that figure doesn't even take into account the employer's share of unemployment, or any employer-paid benefits to which the reading coach might be entitled. At any rate, degree or no, it seems highly unlikely that someone would be working at a job that bores them for such a low pay level.

7. You spent a week watching 2 men paint a 5 foot wall, really?

Why, were you watching her watch them? There's a difference between watching someone do something, and noticing that it's taking X amount of time for Y people to perform a task.

8. Do you have a scanner or something that you monitor your maintenance departments calls? Again, if they drive their personal cars for work, the district will have to add them to the district insurance policy AND reimburse them for mileage--it is less expensive to have them drive the school vehicles.

Who reimburses the school system for personal use of the vehicles, or monitors it, or covers the insurance? Is there a reason the employees can't drive their personal vehicles to the location where the work vehicles are parked, and change vehicles, before proceeding to perform night/weekend work?

12. You ride all of these buses everyday so you do a head count?

Don't have to. Periodically, my local news will report similar conditions. Why should I waste my time riding school buses (which, ideally, I should not be allowed to do) and counting heads - when companies charged with reporting the news, including how my tax dollars are spent/wasted will do it FOR me?

 

[castleview]

This isn't going to be popular, but I think if anything should be cut it's middle school sports. First, because most communities have rec programs for kids that age and if they don't they should - that would make a stronger feeder program for the high school if that's important.

Secondly, I think middle school sports can be so misleading. I have seen so many kids cut from middle school teams for various reasons. Those kids feel they have no business going out for the high school team even though they might be better at that age then many of the kids who make the middle school team.

 

[Uuaww]

I hate the idea of pay to play but when I played football/soccer we did massive amount of fundraising. This was 5-10 years ago (I'm 24). To whoever user said that kids these days don't do fundraising... it must be a new thing. We did a ton of rummage sales and spagetti dinners and the such. The big money maker was a value card. We would go around to local fast food and other food/service places and ask if they would like to support us by offering a discount. Burger places did buy one get one free or free drinks. Pizza places took $5 off, 10% off dry cleaning etc.

 

[Pigeon]

I think many districts could cut a few high salaried administrative and non-teaching positions. It's popular around here to have a "communications and media specialist," which is essentially a PR position. When you have a defined revenue stream and a defined population to service, I don't think spending $75K/year for PR is really necessary. And a school website doesn't need a full-time web person.

There are also all sorts of adminstrative positions at big salaries that could probably be consolidated and no one would know the difference.

 

[golfgal]

Does the superintendent drive from school to school on a regular basis? Does she or he do any large amount of work-related driving? Isn't the current reimbursement rate (for tax purposes) about fifty cents per mile? Without knowing how much work-related driving this person does, it'd be difficult to determine how many miles would need to be driven before a mileage reimbursement would be less cost-effective than the current car allowance. I'd think, though, it'd have to be a LOT. An average 100 miles a day, every day, every week, would be a $13,000 reimbursement.

$5,000 at minimum wage would mean this reading coach works less than twenty hours a week - and that figure doesn't even take into account the employer's share of unemployment, or any employer-paid benefits to which the reading coach might be entitled. At any rate, degree or no, it seems highly unlikely that someone would be working at a job that bores them for such a low pay level.

Why, were you watching her watch them? There's a difference between watching someone do something, and noticing that it's taking X amount of time for Y people to perform a task.

Who reimburses the school system for personal use of the vehicles, or monitors it, or covers the insurance? Is there a reason the employees can't drive their personal vehicles to the location where the work vehicles are parked, and change vehicles, before proceeding to perform night/weekend work?

Don't have to. Periodically, my local news will report similar conditions. Why should I waste my time riding school buses (which, ideally, I should not be allowed to do) and counting heads - when companies charged with reporting the news, including how my tax dollars are spent/wasted will do it FOR me?

Well, our school district encompasses several towns so yes, our superintendent does a lot of school related driving.

You said CUT, not eliminate. I was using a figure of taking her down from say 40 hours/week to 30 hours/week. You really want the position eliminated-that is different.

I have no idea what wall you are talking about and what was going into the process and unless YOU watched them, you don't either.

The school used vehicles come out of the school budget as does insurance costs which is WHY they chose to let the staff use school vehicles--it is LESS EXPENSIVE to do it that way. I suppose they could drive their personal vehicles home, then back to the school, the to wherever the trouble spot is but that might mean the difference between saving a building and not so I suppose the district has decided it is less expensive to let these people drive the vehicles home then take the chance of having to totally repair a building because of a water pipe break.

The point you have totally missed is your ideas just show how uninformed you are as to how schools work. Perhaps if you DID spend some time in the school you would have a better opinion on how these things really work.

 

[golfgal]

This isn't going to be popular, but I think if anything should be cut it's middle school sports. First, because most communities have rec programs for kids that age and if they don't they should - that would make a stronger feeder program for the high school if that's important.

Secondly, I think middle school sports can be so misleading. I have seen so many kids cut from middle school teams for various reasons. Those kids feel they have no business going out for the high school team even though they might be better at that age then many of the kids who make the middle school team.

Our district is cutting football, softball and baseball at the middle school level because there are in-house programs that duplicate these. For the rest, swimming, volleyball, soccer, basketball, wrestling, the only other choice is high priced club travel teams so they are keeping these programs. They don't cut at our middle school level. They compete against teams from the other middle schools in our district.

I think many districts could cut a few high salaried administrative and non-teaching positions. It's popular around here to have a "communications and media specialist," which is essentially a PR position. When you have a defined revenue stream and a defined population to service, I don't think spending $75K/year for PR is really necessary. And a school website doesn't need a full-time web person.

There are also all sorts of adminstrative positions at big salaries that could probably be consolidated and no one would know the difference.

So who do you propose does these jobs? What consolidations do you propose? Have you run for your school board to help make these decisions?

 

[cats mom]

What professions require employees to bring work home? I only ask because every time a teacher mentions bringing work home, someone says that almost EVERY profession does too, but nobody ever mentions what those professions are.

Here's a short list from personal experience, or folks I've had this conversation with recently:

Accountant
Comptroller
City manager
Department store scheduler
Editor
Production manager
Pediatrician
Retail store manager

I'm sure other folks could add more.

Just last week we went out with 2 other couples. Of the 6 people at dinner, 3had to take work calls at some point during the evening (the teacher was not one of them) Lots of folks are being stretched thin and having additional reponsibilities added, with no additional compensation, right now.

I absolutely think teachers perform an important job, and they should be fairly compensated, but the taking work home arguement that invariably gets thrown out when talking about teacher pay makes me crazy!

 

[HsvTeacher]

Hope I've cleared those points up for you. I've worked in the same system for long enough to know that funds could be better spent. I'd much rather those issues be addressed than losing front-line teachers.