I believe that every school district in the state of Oregon is experiencing a budget freeze. My cooperating teacher is on the committee to negotiate a contract at our school, and today he was bombarded with tons of emails from teachers who are very angry at the money situation.
Why wouldn't they be? Our school district is almost a million dollars over-budget, and the year isn't even over. The state doesn't have money left to pay for the last quarter, so their quick-fix solution is to cut school days. However, teachers have a contract that protects them from losing days, and therefore losing pay (hence the contract negotiations). The teachers have to be persuaded into giving up 1% of their salary, and I believe would do so if they got payback in return, such as a 1% increase to next year's salary, or a 1% bonus.
I can't help but think that if the state, and those in charge of the money at the district level, managed the money better, we wouldn't have this problem. Education needs to be run like a business. Spend only the money you have, plan, budget, and PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES.
Right now there's some blame casting going on. First find a solution for the problem, THEN find out what went wrong so we can prevent this from happening again.
Is anyone else experiencing the same thing in their school?
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Yea, I think the whole situation is kind of crazy. My wife is part of the district and it seems criminal to promise people a certain amount of pay then come back and say "uuhhhh....sorry, we don't actually have that money we promised. Our bad." Less pay may be ok for some, but when that is your family's income, it makes it kind of difficult.
ReplyDeleteWhat's even worse is the public outcry, "I thought what mattered is the children?!" Shame on teachers for wanting to get paid for work they do, especially since they are legally, contractually, owed those days. I guess the public believes that teachers should suffer for the lack of planning evidenced by the state and district. Ironically, by not cutting days the children DO come first, since they are keeping student achievement in mind.
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