Ok, so here's the results of the BCPS (Burke County Public Schools) Workshop 2 Results...
Unfortunately, I can't post my real feelings on the forum or elsewhere on the internet, so I'll do it here on my personal blog instead.
As mentioned in my previous blog post (
http://junkmail3612.blogspot.com/2011/04/bcps-workshop-2.html), I was extremely disappointed in the parent/teacher ratio at this workshop. It seemed as if this was done intentionally, but no one has any actual proof of this. But some of the results that came from this budget workshop definitely came from many of the misled, uninformed teachers who is only taking Dr. Stellar's numbers into account and haven't done any research of their own, in which I'll point out here...
School Consolidations
First, school consolidation was mentioned several times, which can't be done until next year because it's too late to do so because this feat couldn't be done before school starts back in the fall, so even bringing up school consolidation to impact THIS YEAR'S budget is a complete waste of time.
And while I'm on the topic of school consolidation, I also noticed RCES (Rutherford College Elementary School) was singled out twice in these results. So what these teachers are saying is to consolidate the HIGHEST performing school in Burke County into a lesser performing school. Rutherford College and Forest Hill Elementary Schools help bring up the average test scores for the ENTIRE COUNTY, so let's consolidate the schools that attract families here to Burke County. That makes a heck of a lot of sense.
Also, what these misled, uninformed teachers don't understand is that even if we were to consolidate, the BCPS BOE (Board Of Education) has mentioned more than once that several teachers would still have to be cut, and they would evaluate teachers based upon their performance, and NOT on their tenure (how many years they've been teaching in a BCPS). If that's the case, then many teachers would be replaced by a teacher from either Rutherford College or Forest Hill Elementary, since those are the HIGHEST PERFORMING SCHOOLS IN THE ENTIRE COUNTY. I'll recap just in case I didn't make myself clear the first time.... THE HIGHEST PERFORMING SCHOOL IN ENTIRE BURKE COUNTY. Better hope your class' average grade scores are high, or you might be replaced my one of my daughters' teachers! By the way, my oldest daughter, who's in first grade, reads at a fourth grade reading level mostly because of the dedication of her teachers. Our RCES teachers are PHENOMENAL. Better hope you are if consolidation were to ever happen.
I also noticed that someone wrote "$3,000,000" if six schools were to be consolidated. Once again, a misled and uninformed statement by the misled and uninformed. That's going strictly by Dr. Stellar's numbers, if each school were to save the county $500,000 each, but even the BOE have stated they doubt this number is even realistic. All it takes is about 15 to 30 minutes of research on this search engine called "Google" to find out how bloated these numbers are. In reality, the county might save somewhere between $100,000 to $250,000 per school, which brings the actual total amount saved down to somewhere between $600,000 to $1,500,000 (about HALF of what's "projected", at best).
Lastly, before I jump off of this school consolidation bandwagon and onto my next point, I keep hearing the reasons for consolidating our elementary schools are due to both "efficiency" and declining student enrollment. First of all, our Burke County Public High Schools aren't operating at the recommended efficiencies either, so let's consolidate our high schools and cut some high school teachers there! And our declining student enrollment is happening mostly in our Burke County Public Middle Schools and NOT in our elementary schools, so how about consolidating some middle schools and cutting teachers there, too? Heck, let's just combine all of our Burke County Public Schools into one big freakin' high-rise and have just a dozen of teachers to teach them all, and let's put almost all of the teachers on the chopping block. All of the teachers except for the exceptional teachers who go above and beyond for our kids and the quality of their education, such as those at RCES.
School Administrators and Teachers Supplements
Something else I heard thrown around is that many of the teachers who attended the second BCPS Workshop voiced their opinion that they didn't want to lose their supplements, and even went as far as throwing other teachers under the bus (lay-off some teachers) so that they could keep their supplements. HOW FREAKIN' SELFISH!!! Let me tell you a story about a little corporation that I work for called
Best Buy who owns over 1,000 stores worldwide in several countries and employees far more people than residents who live in Burke County...
About a few years ago or so, Best Buy had to "consolidate" some positions when the economy started going down the toilet and looking really scary. But instead of firing a ton of employees and keeping everyone else at the "status quo", many had to take lesser paying positions, starting top-down from the corporate level down into the store level. Many employees in the store, district, regional, territorial, and even corporate positions were placed in lower positions and took pay cuts (many district managers became store managers, and many supervisors and seniors became regular full-time employees). A lot of people were unhappy about this, but almost all of us still had a job, and very few people actually lost theirs completely. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the benefit of the whole.
And because of the economy, most of us who works for a private business or corporation hasn't had a "bonus" in many years. In fact, it seems that the only people in the corporate world who has gotten any bonuses in the last several years are the CEO's and board members of corporations who received a government handout (also known as corporate welfare) back when the crap originally hit the fan. And if the economy has affected our government much like the way it has affected most businesses (as it obviously has since Burke County has a $12 million deficit), then NO government employee (anyone's position who's paid via tax payers' dollars), whether you're a teacher at a public school or the President of the United State, should receive ANY bonuses or supplements, period! I'm not attacking school administrators and teachers, but NO ONE in the government should be getting bonuses and supplements unless you're operating in the black and NOT in the red! If these complaining teachers had been working for a private business or corporation, then they wouldn't have received a supplement (or a "bonus") for the last several years. Even one of our own BOE members mentioned that they had previously been a teacher for 15 years and never once received any supplements! People receive bonuses when their company thrives, and don't when the company doesn't. That's how the rest of the real world operates, and I wouldn't call running a $12 million deficit "thriving".
