Tiverton School Budget Woes
"The president of the Rhode Island School Superintendents Association, Schools Supt. James Halley of North Kingstown, says 'the conversation has moved away from children and the achievement of children.... The conversation is about property tax relief, and that is basically provided to a certain extent on the backs of children or teachers. Essentially what the legislature is saying is that teacher benefits and salaries need to be reduced,' Halley said."
Exactly. That's the point. The Leg will tell you "what, how, & when" but you need to come up with your own $ for the "where." And they've provided the "where" by offering only one avenue - property taxes - which is just another state tax .
Sup't Bill Rearick says that about 1.3 mil needs to be cut from the budget. Goodbye electives like tech ed. & home ec. "Au revoir" to French in the h.s. & "adios" to middle school Spanish. Forget advanced placement courses at the high school and some staffing. And the list is not yet complete.
Hello mediocrity (I'm being generous here). Welcome to the wonderful world of "Many Children Left Behind" because we just don't want to fund public education. Let's welcome its demise and screw those Union people, too (who actually expect to make a decent living). Yes, another example of the "ownership" society. Need help? Well, you're on your own.
Tiverton is also negotiating teacher contracts this year. Glad I'm not on those teams.
2 comments:
There is no doubt that teachers play one of the most important roles in American society. Teachers choose their profession, and we can only hope they selected it, not to become rich, but to help young people enrich their lives. For this, they should be compensated. But lets call a spade a spade.
Teachers are bound by their contract and their contract only. By contract, teachers work about 182 days a year. While the school day is roughly 6 hours, teacher typically receive a free period for lunch/rest. This period averages around 50minutes depending on the system.
So, 182 days * 5hours a day = 910hours of work. They only have professional development hours they must complete, thats about 20 hours (again, depending on the school system). That brings the total number of hours up to about 930 hours.
Well, if a teacher makes $35,000, that averages almost $38 an hour. If they're making $50,000 annually, it comes to $53 an hour. At $65,000 a year, its $70 an hour. And that doesn't count healthcare, retirement, sick leave, personal time, or any other perks.
So, to turn around to a taxpayer whos making $10 or $12 an hour and say "hey! we're raising your taxes so we can pay a teacher three or four times what you're making" doesn't go over too well. And it shouldn't
Thanks for the comment. Teachers certainly don't chose their profession to become rich! But they do expect adequate & appropriate compensation, as do we all.
Your hours are WAY off. 30 min. for lunch. That's it. NO free time. You've forgotten meeting times after school. In Middletown that was 8 hrs./month, I believe. Professional hours - how about completing degrees? Plus more classroom hours even after.
Then the $ involved for courses, not to mention school supplies.
BTW a taypayer making $10-$12 an hours most likely isn't paying federal, state, or even property taxes.
But they still need a contract and state law isn't very helpful here to either side, let alone partents, students, and teachers.
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