Yes, anti-education - sacrificing school programs and materials at the expense of higher salaries and wages.
Despite a 2.87 percent, $3.5 million, increase in the the 2009-10 fiscal year school budget, bringing spending up to $126.9 million, here are the list of reductions in the West Hartford School System budget as outlined in last night's Board of Education meeting as reported in the Courant today:
* About 23 full-time positions would be cut (it is claimed that few directly affect the classroom).
• Instituting a $25 annual fee for the roughly 2,000 middle and high school students who participate in intramural or extracurricular activities, such as chess club and mock trial.
• Trimming $754,000 from school and department supply budgets, which include funds for textbooks and printing newsletters.
• Laying off eight special education staff members and two teaching assistants to save $276,000. For another $629,000 in savings, three security guards, two maintenance workers, 20 part-time custodians and four central office staffers — including the coordinator of English for Speakers of Other Languages — would have their positions cut.
• A wage freeze for all non-union employees, including top administrators, for a $84,000 savings.
Our highly paid and compensated Education CEO, Dr. Sklarz, cannot seem to manage to a zero budget increase. Instead he has chosen to compensate for his department's even higher spending on salaries and benefits at the expense of the students by making them pay more for sports and programs and eliminating their textbooks and reducing supplies! Shall parents have to buy toilet paper and hand soap next?
Special education instructors and maintenance workers are being cut so that higher wages can be spent on union administration and teacher salary and benefits! Nice to see that Special Education teachers are valued as highly as maintenance staff in our school system.
If non-union employees wages were frozen then how come the teachers union wages and benefits are allowed to grow? Where is the equity in that? Why aren't any of Teacher's Union president, Dave Dippolino's minions being sacrificed at the expense of their new expensive contract? (Oops, we forget that we got such an amazing DEAL on this new teachers contract and we ought to be ever so thankful).
The Courant reports:
Salaries and benefits would total $107.5 million under the plan, which translates to a little more than $4 out of every $5 that the school system spends. School officials consider the 2.3 percent increase in salaries relatively low and attribute it to the new teachers' contract, non-classroom cuts and the proposed wage freeze.Dr. Sklarz has now set down the upcoming budget battle over tax increases in terms of saving full-day kindergarten and gifted and talented programs.
If the spending increase is lowered to zero percent, Sklarz said, "core" programs such as full-day kindergarten and gifted and talented education could be cut. But Sklarz also said that under no scenario would he recommend increasing class sizes.
Yesiree, it IS business as usual.
Parents will yet again be used as pawns to fight for full-day kindergarten and programs in order to save higher salaries and wages for teachers and administrators at a time when most of those very parents are facing layoffs and reduction of wages in their own jobs while facing the prospect of paying yet higher taxes. Oh the irony.
Students, parents and taxpayers all lose in this scenario thanks to bargaining units who continue to demand more at a time when we can all little afford it.
Additionally, what services on the Town side will we have to eliminate to pay for these higher education costs?
The Courant reports:
The school board will discuss the budget, which does not factor in possible federal stimulus funds, during the next three weeks and will hold a public hearing March 26. The board is expected to adopt a plan April 7, then submit it to the town council for review.
3 WH Responses:
Why dont we make the teachers and adminstration pay to park. that would generate money. Whos going to clean the schools. I have a idea have the kids take class online. we would save a ton of money that way.
At the budget forum I provided information on the increases projected in the areas of capital spending, operating expenses, wages and benefits and tried to underscore the fact that all of the first three areas were shrinking to accommodate the growth of benefits in the budget. The information provided in the Courant article is sufficient to confirm that operating expenses (investment in current needs) are decreasing in real terms, while both wages and capital spending (investment in future needs) are increasing by less than 2.5%. Benefits meanwhile, are increasing in the proposed budget by 10.2%.
My recommendation at the budget forum was that the Town Council and BOE adopt resolutions indicating the Town's position to cap and change the defined benefit pensions and generous vacation, sick day and healthcare provisions offered to Town and BOE employees in the next round of collective bargaining negotiations. Only by getting runaway benefit costs under control will our elected officials be able to stem the tide of increased fees and taxes and decreased services.
Robert Sisk
This BOE
What is very clear is that no one of the so-called citizens of this blog have been in the public schools recently, or at least have never spent any time in a classroom.
Be careful, all of this will come back to bite you when these harsh economic times force many privately schooled children back into the public schools. It will be interesting to see what happens when those parents begin to se the reality of the over-worked, under compensated teachers. Teachers who have gone with sub inflation rate increases for the vast majority of negotiations.
Be care what you criticize ir you do not know what you are talking about.
If you are serious about what you say (difficult to fathom as most of your information is either skewed or incorrect)spend some time in a middle or high school. I have not met a person who has done this and not come out in awe of what teachers are expected to do and wht they accomplish in any one day.
Teachers council your child, educate them, teach them manners, listen to them, judge them objectively and try to find resources to deal with their problems.
Do not undermine the very people who support and form your community. Perhaps ou people need some more education and the attention of a teacher - in many schools your work you present here would receive a low grade for incorrect facts and you could be accused of bullying. Just because your friends do things that are wrong, does not make it any better. Do not attack the people who have helped and repeatedly sacrificed for this community. Treating them poorly will win you no place in any sacred place.
The facts are that communities that have neglected their schools, teachers and youth experience economic flight, increased crime rates and the loss of business - this is fact and whe have examples of it all around us. Do your research and learn. Ask a teacher, they may be able to help you, that is their job.
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