The DEC President who pushed those endorsements was voted out. Based on what they posted on Facebook in the last few days, I think DEC is seriously planning for a strike; this is part of a post from yesterday:
"While DEC understands D65 is in real financial trouble, DEC doesn’t feel the problem should be solved on the backs of the educato…
The DEC President who pushed those endorsements was voted out. Based on what they posted on Facebook in the last few days, I think DEC is seriously planning for a strike; this is part of a post from yesterday:
"While DEC understands D65 is in real financial trouble, DEC doesn’t feel the problem should be solved on the backs of the educators. Let us be abundantly clear, ever since we began financial negotiations, D65 has been transparent in that they are hoping to solve their financial woes and mismanagement by balancing the budget on our backs, while refusing to accept or acknowledge their own administrative excess."
In ten years we've almost tripled the size of the non-principal D65 administrative apparatus in salaries alone. If the District in 2015 could run a much smaller administration with more students, why can't we now? What value are they adding? Grossi showed we have almost no financial controls, the reporting to the Board has been wrong and inaccurate, there have been issues with getting subs and guest educators, and teachers complain they rarely get the support resources they request.
What value is this whole administrative organization adding? Does a District of 5,500 students need 4 Assistant Superintendents (average $185k total comp) and a Deputy Superintendent ($213k total comp)? Why do we have two people with titles, "Chief of Academics and School Management" each making $175k/year? They botched the Bessie Rhodes 7/8th grade thing, which they had a full summer to prepare for! Why are we paying these folks so much more than we pay even the most tenured teaching staff ($118,865 for Track V 2024 in the CBA) who are actually in front of our kids?
When I started in the district, there was one administrator at JEH that didn't appear to add any value. It was always a joke about what she actually did (she's still there). Even the administrators we didn't necessarily agree with were hardworking, smart, and had a vision. Now, I seriously cannot think of a single administrator at the higher ranks who deserves any respect from teachers or adds any value to the students of d65. So glad to be out.
Yeah and I'm sorry if my comment above seemed kind of mean, I'm sure there are some hardworking people but in aggregate, this current system seems broken. Like, did the School Board approve two people with the same job of "Chief of Academics and School Management"? I find that hard to believe.
They are so top heavy with admin it is disgusting. The fact that they have not already made major admin cuts just shows they have made no paradigm shift in how they are thinking about fixing this district. And yet with all that administrative staff they are “too busy” to make the necessary plans going forward. So, now are paying about 500K to a consultant to tell them what schools, programs and staff to cut.
It's amazing to see that; my memory is a bit hazy but could the initial rise in admin have been due to the addition of Assistant Principals at the elementaries? Still, 3M increase in seven years and then almost doubling just since 21-22? That's ridiculous.
The additional AP’s were added when the Special Services Supervisor position (5 positions) was eliminated-the idea was that the additional AP positions would take care of Special Ed/IEP’s in their respective buildings. Then that was apparently too hard so they added a SpEd (called IES) coordinator position-they are up to 8 coordinator positions at this point I believe-if they were going to add coordinator positions to take care of SpEd in the schools then they should have taken back the AP positions…
The DEC President who pushed those endorsements was voted out. Based on what they posted on Facebook in the last few days, I think DEC is seriously planning for a strike; this is part of a post from yesterday:
"While DEC understands D65 is in real financial trouble, DEC doesn’t feel the problem should be solved on the backs of the educators. Let us be abundantly clear, ever since we began financial negotiations, D65 has been transparent in that they are hoping to solve their financial woes and mismanagement by balancing the budget on our backs, while refusing to accept or acknowledge their own administrative excess."
I couldn't agree more with that statement. This District is spending way too much just on salaries for top administrators, see this story:
https://www.foiagras.com/i/150258436/administrative-compensation
In ten years we've almost tripled the size of the non-principal D65 administrative apparatus in salaries alone. If the District in 2015 could run a much smaller administration with more students, why can't we now? What value are they adding? Grossi showed we have almost no financial controls, the reporting to the Board has been wrong and inaccurate, there have been issues with getting subs and guest educators, and teachers complain they rarely get the support resources they request.
What value is this whole administrative organization adding? Does a District of 5,500 students need 4 Assistant Superintendents (average $185k total comp) and a Deputy Superintendent ($213k total comp)? Why do we have two people with titles, "Chief of Academics and School Management" each making $175k/year? They botched the Bessie Rhodes 7/8th grade thing, which they had a full summer to prepare for! Why are we paying these folks so much more than we pay even the most tenured teaching staff ($118,865 for Track V 2024 in the CBA) who are actually in front of our kids?
Current CBA: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bBZlPZ3PzBSvweiz6YquCVZtvoP_dE31/view
When I started in the district, there was one administrator at JEH that didn't appear to add any value. It was always a joke about what she actually did (she's still there). Even the administrators we didn't necessarily agree with were hardworking, smart, and had a vision. Now, I seriously cannot think of a single administrator at the higher ranks who deserves any respect from teachers or adds any value to the students of d65. So glad to be out.
Yeah and I'm sorry if my comment above seemed kind of mean, I'm sure there are some hardworking people but in aggregate, this current system seems broken. Like, did the School Board approve two people with the same job of "Chief of Academics and School Management"? I find that hard to believe.
They are so top heavy with admin it is disgusting. The fact that they have not already made major admin cuts just shows they have made no paradigm shift in how they are thinking about fixing this district. And yet with all that administrative staff they are “too busy” to make the necessary plans going forward. So, now are paying about 500K to a consultant to tell them what schools, programs and staff to cut.
It's amazing to see that; my memory is a bit hazy but could the initial rise in admin have been due to the addition of Assistant Principals at the elementaries? Still, 3M increase in seven years and then almost doubling just since 21-22? That's ridiculous.
I am excluding anyone with “Principal” in my analysis
That makes it even worse.
I know!!
The additional AP’s were added when the Special Services Supervisor position (5 positions) was eliminated-the idea was that the additional AP positions would take care of Special Ed/IEP’s in their respective buildings. Then that was apparently too hard so they added a SpEd (called IES) coordinator position-they are up to 8 coordinator positions at this point I believe-if they were going to add coordinator positions to take care of SpEd in the schools then they should have taken back the AP positions…