The next time some ‘grass roots’ education advocacy group says that our schools’ budgets have been cut to the bone and other groups go on to threaten that over 50 teachers will lose their jobs if overrides are not passed, ask them why Cave Creek Unified:
Installed new electronic marquees at 4 schools…
Continues to give car allowances to a multitude of administrators (from proposed 2011/2012 contracts)…
Pays for out of state trips for the superintendent (to receive an honorable mention)…
PS Isn’t a website, Facebook, Twitter, and email enough to get the word out? What percentage of parents drive to even see the signs? But ironically enough, notice that the LMES electronic marquee (not solar powered, sucking down thousands of watts or power a year) is promoting that parents read the school emailed newsletter instead of actually providing vital information.
You see something wrong with car allowance when they need to use cars for business reasons (we are not discussing personal use here) and the cost is relatively low.
ReplyDeleteI doubt those marquees cost a teacher's salary.
Once again, you are prone to exaggeration.
Welcome to NY and one of the best school districts in the place where I now live. The new Super (got her contract last year, was in district and got a promotion) started with $265,000 with 5% increases each year for the next five years plus over $100,000 in benefits (including a car). Having looked at the salaries, most of the teachers seem to make over $100,000.
The taxpayers paid for all of the schools to be equipped with smart boards unlike Cave Creek where PTO's had to constantly milk the parents at the schools for funds to keep up with the latest technology.
You get what you pay for and in Cave Creek's case, there are unfortunately too many people unwilling to pay for education and reasonable education costs (the car costs that you have described most definitely fall within the realm of reason.)
Finally a post worth reading. Thank you May 15, 2011 3:10 PM
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that the school district is willing to co-operate when there is a lawsuit involved...how many have tried to reason with CCUSD only to get their "deaf ear" or their "blind eye". If you want their attention "File a Law Suit" what a way to work with your community CCUSD93
ReplyDeleteSo we should ignore amounts because they may be small. My PTO paid close to $10,000 for a new copier for the school.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't the district has its own vehicles available for administrators to use and the state pays for those miles?
I see, if we triple the pay of our superintendent then our schools will be as good as the best schools in NY.
May 15, 3:10
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you said...but you'd be surprised on the cost of those marquees. The DAMS one (now at an empty school) cost over $25,000. This was at a time when they had no decent computers for the students, etc. The student council raised money for the marquee.
Not a whole teacher's salary...but half...so if they bought four that would be two teachers...
It's okay, though, because they had enough money to give teachers raises too this year.
May 18 - 11:47A
ReplyDeleteIf you think that my point was to say that you should increase the super salary, then you missed my point. Actually, the super for this district is overpaid, something which will be dealt with probably over the span of the next several years to bring more in line with where it should be. However, the budget increase passed here because people understood that administrative salaries are contractual and will not change because a budget is voted down. All that is hurt is the kids. CCUSD voters do not seem to understand that every budget they have voted down has meant more cuts for the students.
FYI - this district is 5 schools, 3000 kids. Smaller than CCUSD. A wonderful district in many ways and I don't think anybody is anxious to run admin out of town while they work the costs down to a more reasonable level. Hopefully, this administration will take some pay cuts on their own, similar to what CCUSD admin did a couple of years ago. While the budget here passed, an incumbent school board member was ousted by a candidate who ran on a platform of more accountability and reining in on administrative contracts. I voted "YES" for the budget and for the "new blood" as well.
Is May 15, 3:10 pm and May 19, 6:40 pm ("Fleecing of the taxpayer....") referring to NY State school district 280214 in Nassau County? If so, this is an interesting school district! It has about 3,000 students contained in five schools and an early child development center.
ReplyDeleteThe total spending for this school district is about $103 million in the 2010-11 school year and includes about 285 teachers (for about 3,000 students?). According to the school district/NY State, the tax rate is $909.65 for every $100 of assessed home valuation to support this spending budget.
In 2010-11, the school superintendent earned $280,000 in salary plus $86,880 fringe benefits plus $22,660 in other compensation (a total of nealy $390,000). The district also has three associate superintendents (with total compensation packages ranging from $292,000 to $355,000), five principals (compensation ranges from $166,000 to $196,000) and seven assistant principals (compensation ranging from $138,000 to $158,000).
All this for a 3,000 student enrollment? With a $100 million spending budget, massive administrative and teacher staffing and huge compensation packages, equipping the classroom with smart boards is a mere trifle!
I am the poster.
ReplyDeleteI do not know if that is how the district is referred to - 280214 (it is usually just called district 14 around here), but yes, your research seems correct. The only minor correction that I would have on it is that the early child development center is one of the five schools (not a sixth and separate property).
More info - Individual student spending is approximately $34,000 per student!
Most of the funding is through local property taxes with some additional funding from the state.
I believe that the average school taxes alone on a house here is around $9,000 per house yearly.
There are reasonable costs of educating students and costs that are not reasonable. The point to my posts was that the costs described seem to fall within the realm of reasonable. I am in a district, that yes offers a very fine education, although at quite a price. Not all of these costs are reasonable.