From the BCCT.
I don't follow "As The Neshaminy Turns". It's hard enough keeping up with the plot twists on "One Morrisville to Destroy", but when the negotiations start out with "Go ahead, make my day" style pronouncements, it promises to be a less than cordial series of talks.
We should pay attention and watch this as it plays out. It's probably a preview of the Morrisville talks to come in a few years. Unless of course, by then it's the Pennsbury School District, but that's another story. And another soap opera to tune into. "All My Students" perhaps?
School board says it won’t budge
Neshaminy educators’ pay and benefits account for more than 80 percent of the district’s budget.
By RACHEL CANELLI
They’re not budging.
After the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers recently rejected the school board’s latest health care and salary offer and proposed a counter offer of their own, board President Ritchie Webb told the newspaper’s editorial board last week he believes there’s solid unity on the board to stick to its guns.
Webb’s fellow board members were quick to agree.
“The current contract … has drained the blood from taxpayers,” said Frank Koziol. “I have dug in my cleats and clamped down on my mouth piece. Reggie White couldn’t budge me. I think the only reason we only have nine votes is because [there aren’t] 10 people on the board.”
While union President Louise Boyd also was invited to meet with the newspaper’s editorial board, she declined, saying she meant no disrespect to the public, but it’s the 700-plus educators’ policy to negotiate directly with the district — not through the media.
“Unfortunately, the district has been unwilling to move this process forward in as timely a manner as the (NFT) has strived to achieve,” Boyd wrote via email. “Quite frankly, we’re disappointed that the district has chosen to be more proactive in communicating with the media than with the (union’s) negotiations team.”
Either way, board members said they’re not willing to move from a position of providing teachers with a 1 percent annual salary increase, plus about 2 percent for step increases for longevity and educational training, and asking them to contribute 15 percent to their health care premiums the first year of a proposed three-year deal, 16 percent the second year, and 17 percent in the last year.
Since Neshaminy is the only district in Bucks County where employees pay nothing toward those insurance premiums, board officials said they won’t even consider the teachers’ counter-offer of keeping the medical and drug package status quo and giving 6 percent annual salary increases, including steps.
“This board has never been as unified as it is now,” said William O’Connor. “And since there will be no retro pay, I sincerely hope the NFT will return to the bargaining table with a renewed commitment towards compromise.”
Joseph Blasch, William Spitz and Susan Cummings all concurred.
The union members do pay $15 for doctor visits and $5 and $20 for generic and brand-name drugs, respectively, through Personal Choice, the district’s human resources department reported.
Although Webb said he values the teachers as quality people, he claimed the district simply can’t afford their requests due to a looming $14 million budget deficit.
Webb added that’s why the board is trying to eliminate the $3 million cost of providing retirees with full benefits until age 65 and another $1 million to allow educators to pay the $5 generic fee for $20 brand name drugs when generics aren’t available.
Boyd said the union’s negotiating team is ready and willing to keep talking.
“Our goal is to continue providing the students and the taxpayers of the Neshaminy School District with the highest levels of educational and professional standards possible,” said Boyd. “To that end, we will continue to make every effort on our part to negotiate directly with the district in an effort to secure a fair and equitable contract for our members.”
But board Vice President Kim Koutsouradis said Neshaminy School District needs to start taking care of its financial issues, beginning with the teachers.
Educators start in the district at about $51,976 and top out at roughly $95,923. The average Neshaminy teacher’s salary is $76,000, administrators said. The district pays at least $22,000 per year to cover a family of four’s health care. The average employer contribution for a similar package is roughly $12,700, according to the National Coalition on Health Care.
Neshaminy educators’ pay and benefits account for more than 80 percent of the district’s budget, officials said.
“I … can’t see giving a cent more than what was already offered,” said Koutsouradis. “Enough is enough and it’s time the teachers wake up.”
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Save Money at What Cost?
From the Charlotte (SC) Observer. To save money, they're playing all the high school basketball games in the same gym, rather than JV at one and varsity at another. The result? Games ending way too late at night, incomplete homework, and a slow teacher day tomorrow.
Saving money, but at a cost to kids?
Schools reduce travel by holding games at one site, but some students get home late.
By Langston Wertz Jr. Posted: Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009
On Feb. 10, a high school basketball game featuring the top two boys' teams in the state started at 8:41p.m. Hopewell's team, ranked No.1, left Vance's gym, after an exhilarating 70-62 win, just before 11 to take a bus back to campus.
By the time the players got home and ready for bed, it was going to be after midnight.
This season, many games, like Hopewell-Vance, increasingly started – and ended – later.
“I've got homework to do and on game nights, a lot of times, you can't do it after school. You have to wait until you get home after the game,” said Hopewell guard Brandyn Curry, a 4.6 student who has signed with Harvard. “It's tough to stay awake in class.”
About 10 years ago, Mecklenburg County principals changed from playing three games at one gym and junior varsity boys at another to playing four games at one site.
Principals thought that by combining games, they could save on expenses.
Until last season, the JV games were played with running clocks, except during the final two minutes of the second and fourth quarters. Before the 2007-08 season, JV coaches asked to remove the running clock in exchange for shortened warm-up and halftime sessions.
In some cases, it's working fine. Myers Park athletics director Greg Clewis said his school has made a point to enforce 10-minute breaks between games and halftimes – five minutes shorter than some schools. His goal is to be done by 9:30 each night.
“I know you'll have something from time to time,” Clewis said. “You'll have a girls' overtime or something like that, but if kids leave the gym at 10:30, then you've got an issue.”
Most CMS teams are mainly playing in Charlotte. In neighboring counties like Cabarrus, late game times, plus long bus rides, can be a bad mix.
Concord boys' coach Scott Brewer has had games start as late at 8:50 more than an hour's bus ride from campus.
“That teacher who coaches is so fatigued that they're affecting 90 to 100 kids because they're too dad-gum tired to teach,” Brewer said. “So it's video day or worksheet day, especially for somebody who teaches, say, English or Chemistry. And even a PE teacher will just sit on their can and roll the balls out.”
Cabarrus County School Board member Wayne Williams said county principals were recently asked if they would like to continue playing four games at one site. Two principals voted to split the games. Six voted not to maintain status quo.
“It makes a whole lot more sense to play JV at one school and varsity at another,” Williams said. “Then you don't have possibility of starting varsity boys too late. Usually this doesn't affect girls teams because when they get done playing, they get on the bus and go home.”
In Union County, teams play four games at one site, but the JV has seven-minute quarters, down one from the norm.
In Wake and Guilford counties, teams either play the JVs at a different site or split games up by boys and girls.
In Gaston County, teams play four games at one site, but the JV plays with a running clock, stopping in the final two minutes of each quarter – a version of CMS' old policy.
“Our games are over by 9, 9:30,” said East Gaston athletics director Ken Howell.
At last week's Hopewell-Vance game, the fourth quarter started at 9:37.
“We need to get (kids) home earlier,” CMS school board member Joe White said. “Some years ago, when boys were at home, girls traveled and that interfered with wrestling. But I would say now as both a grandparent and a school board member, we need to figure this thing out.”
Next fall, CMS schools will be reorganized into new conferences, whose officials will meet in May. Vicki Hamilton, the CMS system AD, said one of the agenda items for that meeting are these late games.
Myers Park's Clewis estimates that if CMS played JV and varsity games at separate sites, for example, there would be no additional bus costs, but schools would add about $400 per night for game staffing.
Hamilton said schools would work hard to find a good solution.
“I've been in gyms this year where I looked at the clock and it's 10:40, and that's difficult when our student-athletes have to travel back to the home school, get in their parents' car and drive home and take care of academic work, and then be back at school at 7a.m. So we're going to get our heads together and see what we can come up with that can reduce the length without stepping on the integrity of the basketball games.”
Saving money, but at a cost to kids?
Schools reduce travel by holding games at one site, but some students get home late.
By Langston Wertz Jr. Posted: Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009
On Feb. 10, a high school basketball game featuring the top two boys' teams in the state started at 8:41p.m. Hopewell's team, ranked No.1, left Vance's gym, after an exhilarating 70-62 win, just before 11 to take a bus back to campus.
By the time the players got home and ready for bed, it was going to be after midnight.
This season, many games, like Hopewell-Vance, increasingly started – and ended – later.
“I've got homework to do and on game nights, a lot of times, you can't do it after school. You have to wait until you get home after the game,” said Hopewell guard Brandyn Curry, a 4.6 student who has signed with Harvard. “It's tough to stay awake in class.”
About 10 years ago, Mecklenburg County principals changed from playing three games at one gym and junior varsity boys at another to playing four games at one site.
Principals thought that by combining games, they could save on expenses.
Until last season, the JV games were played with running clocks, except during the final two minutes of the second and fourth quarters. Before the 2007-08 season, JV coaches asked to remove the running clock in exchange for shortened warm-up and halftime sessions.
In some cases, it's working fine. Myers Park athletics director Greg Clewis said his school has made a point to enforce 10-minute breaks between games and halftimes – five minutes shorter than some schools. His goal is to be done by 9:30 each night.
“I know you'll have something from time to time,” Clewis said. “You'll have a girls' overtime or something like that, but if kids leave the gym at 10:30, then you've got an issue.”
Most CMS teams are mainly playing in Charlotte. In neighboring counties like Cabarrus, late game times, plus long bus rides, can be a bad mix.
Concord boys' coach Scott Brewer has had games start as late at 8:50 more than an hour's bus ride from campus.
“That teacher who coaches is so fatigued that they're affecting 90 to 100 kids because they're too dad-gum tired to teach,” Brewer said. “So it's video day or worksheet day, especially for somebody who teaches, say, English or Chemistry. And even a PE teacher will just sit on their can and roll the balls out.”
Cabarrus County School Board member Wayne Williams said county principals were recently asked if they would like to continue playing four games at one site. Two principals voted to split the games. Six voted not to maintain status quo.
“It makes a whole lot more sense to play JV at one school and varsity at another,” Williams said. “Then you don't have possibility of starting varsity boys too late. Usually this doesn't affect girls teams because when they get done playing, they get on the bus and go home.”
In Union County, teams play four games at one site, but the JV has seven-minute quarters, down one from the norm.
In Wake and Guilford counties, teams either play the JVs at a different site or split games up by boys and girls.
In Gaston County, teams play four games at one site, but the JV plays with a running clock, stopping in the final two minutes of each quarter – a version of CMS' old policy.
“Our games are over by 9, 9:30,” said East Gaston athletics director Ken Howell.
At last week's Hopewell-Vance game, the fourth quarter started at 9:37.
“We need to get (kids) home earlier,” CMS school board member Joe White said. “Some years ago, when boys were at home, girls traveled and that interfered with wrestling. But I would say now as both a grandparent and a school board member, we need to figure this thing out.”
Next fall, CMS schools will be reorganized into new conferences, whose officials will meet in May. Vicki Hamilton, the CMS system AD, said one of the agenda items for that meeting are these late games.
Myers Park's Clewis estimates that if CMS played JV and varsity games at separate sites, for example, there would be no additional bus costs, but schools would add about $400 per night for game staffing.
Hamilton said schools would work hard to find a good solution.
“I've been in gyms this year where I looked at the clock and it's 10:40, and that's difficult when our student-athletes have to travel back to the home school, get in their parents' car and drive home and take care of academic work, and then be back at school at 7a.m. So we're going to get our heads together and see what we can come up with that can reduce the length without stepping on the integrity of the basketball games.”
Spend Now or Pay Later
From the BCCT. This may be happening in South Carolina, but it's equally applicable to the Morrisville School District. Instead of a state of the art 21st century K-12 building, we now have one building on life support (with the doctors ready to pull the plug), one receiving massive amounts of prosthetic trailer applications, and a third needing a quad bypass to clear out decades of neglect.
‘Corridor of Shame’
Spend now, or pay later
Kathleen Parker writes this column for Washington Post Writers Group:
DILLON, S.C. — When Bud Ferillo told me to dress warmly, it didn’t occur to me that he was concerned I might be cold inside the classroom.
We were heading to J.V. Martin Junior High School, the school made famous by Barack Obama’s visit during his presidential campaign. At his first news conference as president, Obama referred to the school as an example of why we need stimulus funds for school reconstruction.
Obama learned about J.V. Martin, built in 1896, from Ferillo’s 2005 documentary, “Corridor of Shame,” about crumbling schools along South Carolina’s I-95 corridor. Funded by community leaders and foundations, the film highlights problems that were presented as evidence in a lawsuit 36 school districts brought against the state for failing to provide “minimally adequate education” to all students. (The South Carolina Supreme Court is expected to rule any day.)
“All” is the operative word as plaintiffs claim unequal treatment.
Their evidence is compelling.
Plaintiff districts are 88.4 percent minority compared to the state average of 48.1 percent, according to the lawsuit. They are primarily poor with 86 percent of students getting free or reduced-cost lunches. And 75 percent of students in the plaintiff districts scored unsatisfactory or below average on state achievement tests, compared to 17.4 percent of total students in the state.
Moreover, teachers in plaintiff districts make less than similarly qualified teachers in other districts and fewer have advanced degrees. Not surprisingly, it’s hard to recruit teachers to impoverished areas to teach disadvantaged students in collapsing schools without modern equipment.
Ferillo, who heads a public relations firm in Columbia, argues that improving schools not only will help attract better teachers but also raise parent expectations and participation while inspiring children who are aware of their second-class citizenship. Earlier this month, Ty’sheoma Bethea, an eighth-grader at J.V. Martin, wrote Congress asking for help.
South Carolina isn’t the only state whose rural schools are in trouble, of course. Many of the 1,200 nationwide that Obama hopes to replace with stimulus funds have suffered declining funding in recent years as manufacturing jobs have disappeared, populations have declined and tax bases have shrunk. But problems are exacerbated by an uncomfortable fact most would prefer to ignore: Poor African-American communities are not a top priority.
Ray Rogers, Dillon School District superintendent, has been at J.V. Martin for 18 years, during which he has been forced to serve as janitor, fire marshal and handyman, battling the elements within and without. Rags fill holes, buckets capture water. A fire drill sometimes means jogging down hallways yelling, “Fire drill!”
Rogers’ blue eyes betray battle fatigue and tear up easily as he talks. He says he can take the grief from folks who don’t see why he gets so worked up, but he can’t fathom how good people can turn their backs on children. He gets plenty of grief.
At the Charcoal Grill over a fried chicken buffet, a fellow at the next table calls out: “Hey, you in good with Nancy Pelosi? I hear she’s got $30 million to save a mouse.” (He was referring to funds for wetlands maintenance that would benefit, among other things, the salt marsh harvest mouse.)
Another jovial neighbor notices the wedding ring on Assistant Superintendent Polly Elkins’ finger and says: “Hey, does Obama know you got all them diamonds?”
It’s all friendly enough, but one senses a smidgen of veiled contempt just beneath the banter. These folks remember when nobody ever heard of Barack Obama or Dillon — and when J.V. Martin was good enough for them.
None other than Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a native son, accepted his high school diploma in the auditorium that’s now part of the junior high school. Of course that auditorium, along with one-third of the campus, is now condemned.
As it happens, I did not remove my jacket or scarf during a threehour interview and tour. Although most rooms were relatively warm, thanks to recent repairs, some still registered as low as 50 degrees. Four years ago when Ferillo was filming here, the gym was 18 degrees.
In other schools along the I-95 corridor, classroom ceilings have collapsed and sewage backs up in hallways on rainy days. Sometimes snakes wander in from neighboring swamps.
What happens in rural South Carolina may not be of paramount importance to people elsewhere, who are facing their own economic challenges. But what’s true here is true in rural communities across America, and our choices are pretty simple. As Ferillo put it: “We either educate the child or we jail the adult.”
‘Corridor of Shame’
Spend now, or pay later
Kathleen Parker writes this column for Washington Post Writers Group:
DILLON, S.C. — When Bud Ferillo told me to dress warmly, it didn’t occur to me that he was concerned I might be cold inside the classroom.
We were heading to J.V. Martin Junior High School, the school made famous by Barack Obama’s visit during his presidential campaign. At his first news conference as president, Obama referred to the school as an example of why we need stimulus funds for school reconstruction.
Obama learned about J.V. Martin, built in 1896, from Ferillo’s 2005 documentary, “Corridor of Shame,” about crumbling schools along South Carolina’s I-95 corridor. Funded by community leaders and foundations, the film highlights problems that were presented as evidence in a lawsuit 36 school districts brought against the state for failing to provide “minimally adequate education” to all students. (The South Carolina Supreme Court is expected to rule any day.)
“All” is the operative word as plaintiffs claim unequal treatment.
Their evidence is compelling.
Plaintiff districts are 88.4 percent minority compared to the state average of 48.1 percent, according to the lawsuit. They are primarily poor with 86 percent of students getting free or reduced-cost lunches. And 75 percent of students in the plaintiff districts scored unsatisfactory or below average on state achievement tests, compared to 17.4 percent of total students in the state.
Moreover, teachers in plaintiff districts make less than similarly qualified teachers in other districts and fewer have advanced degrees. Not surprisingly, it’s hard to recruit teachers to impoverished areas to teach disadvantaged students in collapsing schools without modern equipment.
Ferillo, who heads a public relations firm in Columbia, argues that improving schools not only will help attract better teachers but also raise parent expectations and participation while inspiring children who are aware of their second-class citizenship. Earlier this month, Ty’sheoma Bethea, an eighth-grader at J.V. Martin, wrote Congress asking for help.
South Carolina isn’t the only state whose rural schools are in trouble, of course. Many of the 1,200 nationwide that Obama hopes to replace with stimulus funds have suffered declining funding in recent years as manufacturing jobs have disappeared, populations have declined and tax bases have shrunk. But problems are exacerbated by an uncomfortable fact most would prefer to ignore: Poor African-American communities are not a top priority.
Ray Rogers, Dillon School District superintendent, has been at J.V. Martin for 18 years, during which he has been forced to serve as janitor, fire marshal and handyman, battling the elements within and without. Rags fill holes, buckets capture water. A fire drill sometimes means jogging down hallways yelling, “Fire drill!”
Rogers’ blue eyes betray battle fatigue and tear up easily as he talks. He says he can take the grief from folks who don’t see why he gets so worked up, but he can’t fathom how good people can turn their backs on children. He gets plenty of grief.
At the Charcoal Grill over a fried chicken buffet, a fellow at the next table calls out: “Hey, you in good with Nancy Pelosi? I hear she’s got $30 million to save a mouse.” (He was referring to funds for wetlands maintenance that would benefit, among other things, the salt marsh harvest mouse.)
Another jovial neighbor notices the wedding ring on Assistant Superintendent Polly Elkins’ finger and says: “Hey, does Obama know you got all them diamonds?”
It’s all friendly enough, but one senses a smidgen of veiled contempt just beneath the banter. These folks remember when nobody ever heard of Barack Obama or Dillon — and when J.V. Martin was good enough for them.
None other than Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a native son, accepted his high school diploma in the auditorium that’s now part of the junior high school. Of course that auditorium, along with one-third of the campus, is now condemned.
As it happens, I did not remove my jacket or scarf during a threehour interview and tour. Although most rooms were relatively warm, thanks to recent repairs, some still registered as low as 50 degrees. Four years ago when Ferillo was filming here, the gym was 18 degrees.
In other schools along the I-95 corridor, classroom ceilings have collapsed and sewage backs up in hallways on rainy days. Sometimes snakes wander in from neighboring swamps.
What happens in rural South Carolina may not be of paramount importance to people elsewhere, who are facing their own economic challenges. But what’s true here is true in rural communities across America, and our choices are pretty simple. As Ferillo put it: “We either educate the child or we jail the adult.”
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