Is DeKalb waiting for a “budget fairy” to wave away its money woes?

So what other areas would they cut from.
Bus service
School Board raises
School Board expenses
Teachers
activities
sports
programs.

I am not hearing what other areas are being affected or are on the potential chopping block.

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And yes, layoffs will have to happen. If it must be teachers then those layoffs have to happen now and not weeks after school has begun.

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I really take offense at the tone the AJC has struck regarding this issue, and I direct this at both you Maureen and Ty. With a total budget of one billion dollars, there are plenty of other areas to cut besides the fundamental and core part of a school system, teachers. Why is there still no call for a complete removal of the non-teaching personnel instead of teaching positions? There should be zero central office left before one more teacher is fired. The purpose of a school system is to teach kids. For that, you need kids and teachers. Therefore, those are the last areas you touch.

If you need more specifics, we have a superintendent who makes over $250,000, we have three law firms plus over 20 full-time “legal staff”, we have overblown communication and broadcasting departments (nice to have but certainly not more important than teachers), we have bus transportation for people who choose to send their kids to a school other than their home school, we have bus transportation in general (make everyone who isn’t on free/reduced lunch pay for bus services like in other school systems), we have properties that could be sold, we lease expensive space for graduation ceremonites instead of having them at school-owned stadiums, we pay for expense accounts and travel for board members and the superintendent, we have assistant principals for schools that have fewer than 500 students. Need I go on?

TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ARE THE FOUNDATION OF A SCHOOL SYSTEM.

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I had considered voting for my area’s incumbent school board member. But since he lacks the spine necessary to do the tough work of balancing the budget, I have no choice but to vote for his opponent.

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@The Deal – AMEN. You made many VALID points.

My husband works for DCSB in Plant Operations-Ground Dept. I work for state government. We both have endured cut salaries, a hefty rise in health insurance, furlough days, increased duties to account for those that were laid off (though so blessed to still have a job) and the threat of still losing our jobs after all that. You have people in higher up offices/positions that are making the (wrong) decisions to make cuts in the wrong places, making exorbitant salaries and making sure that they have raises though we haven’t had on in 5 years. Let them takes cuts in salaries. The purpose of the school system is for the children to learn. That can’t be done if teachers are cut!

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@ OE Star

I’d be careful cozying up to deal. based on his/her posts, left of up deal your husband would be out of a job. he’s not a “teacher” after all.

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@bootney, the issue of competent vs. incompetent teachers is not what we are discussing. Also, I’m not a teacher. Obviously having been a teacher and having been RIF’d and having any number of other underlying anger and mental issues, you chose to misinterpret my post.

My point is that there is nothing more fundamental to a school system than teachers. Our school system should staff and pay as many teachers as it takes to provide a quality education to our students. Everything else, when it comes down to it, is extra. Therefore, when there are very lean times, you cut the fat (people who don’t see students) vs. meat (teachers).

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no deal,

I took your point just fine.

I know a self righteous jerk when one posts here. if you don’t find a mirror

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@The Deal, of course are the lifeblood of a school district and they should be kept and paid much higher salaries and the DCSD Central Office needs to be cut bare bones. We’ve discussed this ad nauseum. However, the reality of DCSD is that is not going to happen. We have to face that fact. So, in facing that fact, moves, whatever they may be, have to happen now and not weeks into a school year.

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“I know a self righteous jerk when one posts here. if you don’t find a mirror”

Hey bootney, look in the mirror!

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The teachers are the first line defense. They do the real work. Fire them and get only lower level teachers for a long time. The notion of offering teachers contracts then trying to fire them a couple weeks before school starts is truly unethical. The board made the correct choice. Why is there such a short fall anyways. Crawford or what? Time for real solutions. Fire the teachers should the very last thing. Talk about dropping property values, see what happens when you fire teachers for no cause with contracts, like the diplomas will mean anything soon the way this is going.

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I hate that the lowest paid people are on the chopping block, parapros and bus monitors.
Here’s my experience: In my day there were no parapros. It was just the teacher.
Today, teachers have parapros but do they actually use the parapro to help teach?
My experience, which is limited to my own children, is that the teachers (APS) use the parapros to do the work they don’t want to do themselves such as filling out paperwork. If that’s the case in Dekalb, the role of parapro isn’t worth the money. Teachers should do their own paperwork. What I expected parapros to be doing was real assitant teaching work. For example, when the teacher is with a group of six helping them to learn to read, the parapro is with anohter group of six helping them learn to read.
In my experience, the parapro’s skills are wasted.
What is your experience in Dekalb?

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The school board approves a budget proposed by the superintendent that includes a reduction in force, and then that same board refuses to approve the reduction in force. A board member cries out “give me solutions.” Isn’t this the definition of dysfunctional? What do they have to do to get the attention of SACS—start slugging one another?

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The superintendent suggested reduction in force after giving contracts out. Use people then throw them away. Like dekalb schools has too many police and teachers. You believe that I have ocean front property in Nebraska for sale for ya.

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Must people want save themselves or thier job(pay amount) or on taxes, but who has actually walked into some thses schools. Firing teachers and police is the worst thing you can do. These schools are barely safe now. Saving money will only cause serious issue in some of these schools. People need to really see these school for yourself in session.

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So sad, my son’s teacher from last year just bailed. Can’t blame her, she got a 50% pay raise to go to APS. The principal just bailed too, off to Fulton County. The Pre-K teacher of ten years of so bailed, says it no longer makes financial sense to work and juggle her own children’s care.

This school system is rotting away.

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The teachers in Dekalb County signed a “contract” in late May 2012, and they have Yet to receive it back….This is the first time ever that teachers do not have a copy of their contracts… How do ppl go back to work in three weeks without a contract??? Cruel and unusual punishment at best-

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They just won’t listen to suggestions for cuts. Atkinson was hired with the notion that she would have a backbone.
HR will continue to be a mess until someone qualified is heading it up. The reason you don’t get answers is not because it’s “bare bones” but it’s dysfunctional and inefficient because of poor leadership. All the fat cut? Not buying it.
heres an idea. Let’s hold CO people to the same rules as teachers.
Overtime? What’s that? TEachers always work it, but never will get this perk in a million years. Cut it completely out.
Supplies? Teachers spend their own money to have the supplies to make their classroom better for the kids.At the board meeting one member stated a figure for supplies and how huge of an increase in spending for FY 2012. CO: buy your own post its and pens, tissues and paper clips.
Make sponsoring an after school club or academic team a requirement for CO folks – teachers spend all the after school hours plus unreimbursed weekends taking their student teams to competitions and meets. How many CO sponsors spend 12 hour Saturdays in another town with a group of students competing for a the Reading Bowl or Science Fair?
And NO SECRETARIES! Who the heck in the real world has a secretary? You have a county paid smartphone? Sorry, no secretary for you. Meetings are set up through email and there are a myraid of ways to get a message to someone on your subsidized smartphone. Teachers do all of their own “secretarial” or “administrative assistant” work. Sometimes a para could offset some of this so the teacher could invest his time in planning lessons and reflecting on them to make them better, working with a child at lunchtime, etc. No para for us?No secretary for CO folks.
I could go on and on.
The public and the auditors see fat, time to go on an austerity diet.
The public also doesn’t trust any of you on expense accounts. Time for the online checkbook. And mileage register for county cars. If you aren’t in favor, then you must have something to hide.

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@Dunwoodian – yep, when you start losing good teachers because it does not pay them to teach and raise a family we’ve gotten our priorities all messaed.

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This is the same situation which David Banks, of Cobb County, wishes to put his school system in. He has continuously proposed to bet rid of all the money in reserves. Pay attention David Banks, this is what happens when you try to play Santa Clause.

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@Dunwoody Mom, I agree, the state needs to revisit the equalization formula used. We have definitely been left in the cold. DEKALB seems to always pay more then their fair share on most things and nothing is done.

Our PTSA president reviewed the budget line by line and she says that we can save $20 Million if we eliminate the ITBS testing alone. This test is obsolete and was developed in the 1930’s as a way to improve teaching. Out of 50 states, only 4 states use it. If parents want the test, they can pay a test fee for their child. If it is meant to help teachers to teach the students, it is clearly not working in Dekalb County and should be eliminated.

I have a child in a magnet program that is not near ANY public transportation and the CFO wants to remove the bus service that serves the magnet and theme schools in Dekalb County. The sad fact is that almost 800 of the schools 1,300 students rely on the school bus. When I complained about the cuts to BOE McChesney, I received a response with legal mumbo jumbo about bus transportation is not an obligation of the school system. REALLY? I think we need to chuck them all and start all over. We need people in place that are for the children and not their personal agenda.

PS – I have no confidence in the CFO. He came from Florida and attempted to cut the same exact things to balance the budget. That cookie cutter model doesn’t work for every school system. We need competent people working in Dekalb if the school system is going to survive.

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Facts and @Midway, I agree with your points. This is a situation the current leadership inherited. Dr. Atkinson was brought in to make the tough decisions and the collectively BOE is not following through with her recommendations. She brought a budget proposal in May (it did include a 2% millage increase but protected the school house) however our BOE wanted to nit pick and protect special interests. Their responsibility is for oversight not to handle the operational issues of the school system. Some of the questions asked by Nancy Jester crosses the line and that is probably why SACs reminded her about that. She is not alone in fulfilling her responsibilities. SCW seems out to lunch and only wants to pander to the audience. Has she forgotten about the budgets she approved in past years? The BOE delays is partly why we are where we are today.

It is very disingenuous of the BOE to say they did not understand the extent of the problems. In fairness to them, they had no responsibility for the increasing foreclosures and reduction in property tax revenues. Past BOE members did not help by not making tough decisions either, continuing to protect sacred cows such as small schools and door to door special transportation. If strategic cuts had been made gradually over the years, today’s cuts might not be as drastic.

Some people also need to understand that cutting the Central Office staff will not be enough. Even if that could be done, who would do the work that these people perform? Many don’t understand the levels of compliance that takes place in school systems. The idea about a cross the board 10% cut of non instructional staffers is legally questionable also. David Schutten was right in saying citizens may have a point in that that BOE is not performing their constitutional responsible duty of passing a balanced budget.

Too bad the hosts at DSW censor comments like this from me. Anybody else wonder why?

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Well, Fred, I’ve made my last post over at DSW. There is one moderator over there that is fairly thin-skinned and is dismissive and rude if you don’t “tow” her line of thought. “Freedom of Speech” is certainly not something she buys into.

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@DCSS Parent, I really don’t understand the reluctance to further cut positions at the Central Office. I do know that many positions that were coded to the Central Office were really teaching positions, but I don’t believe it’s that significant, maybe I’m wrong. For instance, there is a department called “Dept. of Special Services”. My guess is that these were considered Central office positions, but they really are teachers, i.e., speech teachers. Also, If you look at the PAT Employment site, there were numerous job postings that are administrative in function.These are jobs that, quite honestly, need to be put on the backburner.

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@Dunwoody Mom – will you please provide details on how much DCSD funding is going to the Gwinnett school system and why the funds are being moved?

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DW- And why did it take so long for an intelligent woman to figure out DSW is a joke, and the moderators have their own hidden agendas?

Fred- They don’t post your comments because you don’t buy into their hidden agenda.

DSW is a destructive blog, intent on destroying DCSS.

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I don’t believe DSW is out to destroy the school district. I think there is just one moderator who has control issues and it’s her way or no way. Dissension and discussion that does not agree with her viewpoint is not allowed.

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@DeKalb Mom, when magnet transportation was eliminated a few years ago, it was done mid year. There is a precedent regarding notification about bus service being eliminated. You would have the same amount of notice those parents had.

Choice transportation is not a necessity, it is an entitlement. This may sound harsh but this school district has to make tough decisions with regards to the best use of their dollars. Because many did not want to make tough decisions in past years, we find ourselves in this situation.

I would handle this in two phases, eliminate the choice transportation this year and convert it to a neighborhood school during the next school year beginning in August 2013. I would grandfather existing students who wish to graduate with an AMHS diploma as long as parents provided transportation.

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Simple solutions: 1) Implement a four-day school week; 2) Charge students tuition for summer school; 3) CUT TOP positions at “the Palace,” and 4) reducing the number of APs and counselors in middle and high schools, including their secretaries. Has anyone researched to find out how much it costs to operate one day in the system? Moving to a four day week would require adding only one hour and fifteen minutes to each academic day, Savings would include substitutes, cafeteria staff, buses, water, electricity, and consumables. Work with your PTA, community, and principal for alternative childcare ideas…they’re out there! Tax payers pay for a free education for students. Those needing a second chance should have to pay for it. I didn’t do well in a history class in college, and I had to pay for the second time around (no entitlement). I had to really dig in and study more. There are still too many “protected groups” at the county level. We don’t need all the area supt. – they primarily field calls from parents who complain. Few complaints are warranted and parents have to admit their kid is not perfect. Neither are teachers, so there needs to be some type of reporting structure to produce evidence supporting the complaint(s). We could get along without the secret team of forecasters (obviously, their thinking is wrong), Mrs. Tyson’s position is not needed, neither is the chief communicator, Dr. Alice Thompson’s position, and why do we need so many attorneys? Elementary counselors and APs do mountains of work each day without a secretary. The number of surplus APs and counselors at the middle and high schools is unreal. As well as their secretaries. An AP of facilities at Dunwoody High? Really?? APs in elementary schools are responsible for the master schedule, testing, many handle the bulk of discipline issues, teacher evaluations, instructional support, textbooks, and other school duties as they arise. It’s not a good idea to pull those out of schools with enrollment below 500. Many “smaller” schools have high maintenance parents & programs which consume much of the principal’s time. We are expected to give great customer service, but parents do not think about the fact that sometimes they are keeping the principal from doing his/her job. If the principal is responsible for all the AP does as well, those principals should be paid more and keep in mind their day will easily grow to 12 – 13 hours. They have families too. Dunwoody Mom makes good sense with her comments. She is on target with the comment about paying Gwinnett. The state’s QBE funding formula was developed and adopted under Gov. Joe Frank Harris. The plan includes the funding formula “Fair Share” (I think) for the metro counties to pay the “rural” counties a slice of the tax pie. This was done in the early 80’s. Gwinnett is no longer a rural county and the funding formula needs to be changed. Interesting figures posted on the DSW Blog regarding staffing, enrollment, and budgets. I agree w/Paul Womack about an investigation. What happens w/the money? Surely it has not been in raises for teachers or keeping the people who hold the buildings together (plant services) employed. DeKalb County residents need to head to the polls July 31. Vote for change. You are the only hope for the children! They seem to have been forgotten. It’s heartbreaking. They don’t have a second chance at their childhood. We owe it to them to get it right. NOW.

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@Dunwoody Mom 1:56, Amen and Amen. ITBS is needed, and Arabia Mountain must return to being a neighborhood school. It is barely within the DeKalb county line, a terrible choice for a magnet school that draws from the entire county.

Also, I wish you’d reconsider leaving the DSW blog. I just ignore some of those comments. You have a great point of view and facts to back them up (although I don’t always agree with you!) and the discussion will be poorer without you.

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Dunwoody Mom, I agree that the moderators of DSW2 are thin-skinned and at times rude to posters (a very different atmosphere from the original DSW). And I don’t think they should bar Fred even though he does seem to be a full-time apologist for the school system. But it is still a good source of information and statistics. I too wish that you would reconsider your participation in it. I always appreciated your comments.

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I echo the comments about the DSW2 blog taking a nasty tone on occassion, unlike Cerebration, the moderator of the original blog, who was polite and kind. I also agree that I like reading comments from Dunwoody Mom and Fred in DeKalb, even if I don’t always agree.

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I love teaching uses her parapro to “…check off lists in my cum folders, Xerox papers, enter data scores into a computer, grade a timed multiplication test etc. – all of which need to be done…”
In other words, as I hoped wouldn’t be the case, paraparos in Dekalb county are used like personal secretaries for the teachers. That is a shame and a waste of their skills.
In that case, because I am a property owner in Dekalb county, I will definitely be making my voice heard to axe those parapro jobs.
Our children do not benefit from having a secretary in each class. it is a luxury Dekalb cannot afford.
Teachers in Dekalb can either do their paperwork after the kids go home or lose their jobs themselves.
We simply cannot afford to pay each teacher to have a personal secretary.

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Imagine this — a parapro earns in GA – “Average range is from $15835 to $23752 and the starting range is from $13040 to $19561.”
When any teacher uses a parapro to be their personal secretary, we taxpayers are paying 13K to 19K for each teacher to have their own personal secretary. That is outrageous.
I work for a large company. The director does not have her own personal secretary. She does her own paperwork and schedules her own meetings. I get her emails at 11 p.m. at night…we in the private sector do our paperwork after regular business hours — after putting in a 9 to 10 hour day at the office.
In these drastic times, it is outrageous to provide teachers with a 13K-19K personal assistant.

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@The Deal,

You are sooooooooooooo correct. My question is why can’t they encourage those employees with 30 years or more to retire. Why not stop paying those who are double dipping. Why can’t Cheryl take a cut in pay or get rid of her expense accountS? It seems to me as it was stated that the teaching staff should be the last to be even considered. I am beyond being appauld at how DCSS continues create a larger hole to dig ourselves into second by second. I have not seen such a less than competent group of so called professional leaders in my life.

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@ The Deal—you must not have been paying attention. Dekalb cut out bus service to kids going to school out of their district 3 1/2 years ago. Dekalb has been cutting. Unfortunately, the cuts that have been made cannot account for the reduction in revenue because of diminishing property values and vacancy rates. When an organization (regardless of type) that isn’t revenue generating is seeing a reduction in their budget, layoffs happen. And layoffs will eventually affect what is determined the core.

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@I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming..
(pay I receive for being a TEACHER not a glorified secretary. )

Are you really sure that you get paid to be a teacher. I don’t know about you but we are grossly underpaid. However, you are correct we certainly don’t get paid to be glorified secretaries.

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Know what? Doesn’t matter who or what is right or wrong anymore. The DeKalb School Board has already done the worst job it can possibly do of keeping its house in order and now the value of OUR houses will go down with them. DeKalb County property taxpayers need a rescue!

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We really need to look at local supplements paid to teachers. I have a masters degree and will begin my eighth year of teaching in August. I will be making state salary schedule – meaning DCSD is not paying 1 penny of my salary in 2012-2013. Furloughs will reduce my pay but not save the district a penny. On The other hand, teachers who are either new to the profession or nearing retirement are earning supplements in the thousands of dollars. Just compare the state salary schedule to the DCSD schedule, you will see the disparities that teachers are facing.

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Why should the Board Members be paid as they”kick the can down the road”. Until they make the decision, I recommend they not get paid! The budget number was approved with certain cuts; honor that decision.

Now if they have offered contracts to all teachers and aides, and then they fire some, won’t they need to pay the yearly amount to all those fired?

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what was Walker’s suggestion about Pre-K

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@ Frank Candor
Are you sure about your comment regarding summer school? I ask, not to find fault with what you say, but because I thought that summer school this year was supposed to be DOLA only because of the budget shortfall.

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@P&J “We simply cannot afford to pay each teacher to have a personal secretary.”

The you will be paying your teachers to BE a secretaries.

When it comes down to the wire, these days my job depends more upon my “proving” myself via that paperwork than in the actual effort I put into “teaching” my students. So if I am forced to choose between spending those extra hours doing the paperwork that allows me to keep my job, or spending those extra hours doing what is best for my students – I will do the paperwork. The better I look on paper, the less I am doing for my students.

That is a simple truth, and I am not the only one. I already spend several hours a week going above and beyond. I am simply not going to give up every moment I have with my family to do it all. It has gotten to that point. I am a dang good teacher, but I am not going to KILL myself and neglect my family just because people don’t want to deal with the real problems going on in education, and would rather take the easy route of dumping it all on the classroom teachers.

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How quaint most of these concerns will seem when public K-12 education switches to a voucher marketplace responsive to parents—rather than politicians, pressure groups and media lackeys.

True, many fat & lazy public school teachers and union types will suddenly find themselves waiting tables rather than feeding greedily at the pubic trough, however …

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When the BOE chose to cut the budget by increasing class size by not 1 student but 2 students, they failed to understand the consequences of their decision. You see, by increasing class size by 1 you eliminate 110 teacher jobs in DeKalb. So the board went a little further to “lower the deficit” and raised class size by 2 which eliminated 220 teacher positions in the school system. What the BOE hoped for on the previous “hope and projection fairy” was that all of these 220 teachers would find positions for themselves created by teachers who would leave through attrition, retirement etc. It didn’t happen! Oops it is an election year and those BOE members, trying to get re-elected, could not have this stain on their watch of terminating all of these teachers. So lets back the wagons up and tell the superintendent we can not allow these people to lose their jobs with 3-4 weeks before school (really 3-4 weeks before election) begins. That would be so cold and callus. But after re-election, when teachers are in the classroom and school starts and classes are underfunded, these BOE members will then ask the superintendent to terminate teachers to make-up for the 20 million shortfall. It works for the BOE member because they are back in power for 2 more years! And the schools are left trying to get ready for the first day of school with uncertainty in staffing! These are the board members you voted into power DeKalb!

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Just read the bizarre and often hateful and spiteful comments on DSW. Doesn’t a moderator have some obligation to delete some of the truly hateful and counter productive posts? What was Schutten thinking when he posted on that degenerate and biased blog with his real name? He must be doing something right if there are some people who blindly hate him so much. And some of you say it is not destructive? And at a minimum, why don’t the moderators on DSW identify themselves like the reporters hosting the AJC blogs?

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If I was an employee of Dekalb County School System or a homeowner (taxpayer) in Dekalb County I would skedaddle!

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I think that much of central office has been reassigned to the schoolhouse. I am going to be very angry when I return in the fall to see administrative bloat sitting around our school. I think they are trying to protect the retirement of the highly paid while cutting the little guy. In schools under 600 there should only be a half time assistant principal and counselor. And certainly NOT an instructional coach. Yes they are still out there. Our IC has hid out in her friend’s classrooms for the past 7 years doing nothing. By the way….. who is going to afford the training and staff for the Common Core coming our way? Let’s see….there was QCC, then GPS, now Common Core. Georgia changes the objectives to be taught every three years to give high paid people a job and to look like they are improving education. Money wasted. We all know the way to improve education is to build up the classroom teacher. Instead DeKalb has chosen to break the teacher’s backs by asking us carry a deficit central office created. …By the way..teachers have no paid holidays…we only get paid for the days we work. That pay is then spread over 12 months. Just another thought. I went on the Social Security website to look at my pay over the years. Since 2007 I have lost $7,500. They want me to do more with less and still have stunning results. And they say that the cuts will not affect the student’s education?? hahahaha

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Was it not DeKalb where a female administrator and her contractor husband were arrested, charged, and soon to be tried for stealing from the school building fund? What makes you think the building fund was the only one being looted by the insiders? Bring in the GBI and the forensic auditors! IMHO, of course!

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blurb – Thanks for the information. I don’t think the GBI needs anyone’s approval to conduct a forensic audit as part of a criminal investigation, so that may be the best way to go on this. The school building fraud I mentioned should suffice as probable cause of a crime, justifying the forensic audit.

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At this point, let’s all agree that budget initiatives – balancing and maintaining accountability, eliminating fraud, waste, cronyism and familial hiring – need to continue whether the property tax receipts go down OR go up. I complained when DCSS spending kept pace with increases in property value – which funded a lot of the nonsense that we’re seeing now – but I couldn’t get my voice heard. Fiscal responsibility should be a constant.

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I love teaching…you work 180 days a year. There are 365 days in a year. Think about it.
You work half the year.
Until you have to get out in the private sector and really be subject to the whims of capitalism…you really don’t have anything to complain about.

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Pride & Joy: I spent my early career in Education, I loved the job, hated the paperwork and most Administrators who I came to see as paper pushers. Left to go into Corp. world, now own a small business. Now this is where the rubber meets he road. I have no job security nor income security, if I sell something, I make some money, these days it is getting harder and harder. My heart is still in education but after 30+ years, I could not stand the frustration and anxiety I once experienced, however, today it is up to me, only me, to make things happen. Good teachers abound, great ones are a gem in the rough, frankly the system is outdated and needs an upgrade like most businesses today competing for the shrinking dollar. I am saddened by the plight of Dekalb, but we all saw this coming, like most things, action is needed to avert a diaster. Dekalb needs REAL leaders & REAL Educators, they could solve this problem, I am confident.

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Agree that you would not want to eliminate ITBS unless, like some other school systems, you don’t want a nationally normed achievement test to, at least at 3 points in the K-8 years, show the true status of a student’s achievement. CRCTs do NOT do that. (Also, who could justify cutting a program that evaluates every student in the system at those grade levels to fund transportation for a few who elect to attend a special program? Equity there?)

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“Some people also need to understand that cutting the Central Office staff will not be enough.”

It is a start and will be a good contribution to keep our teachers in the classrooms teaching students. Look at the DeKalb employment postings. Does this look like we are in a budget crisis when we hire so many administrative and support personnel and want to pack students like rats into the classrooms?

DeKalb Taxpayers need to click on the link below to see how many administrative positions are being posted while they eliminate teachers who actually instruct students. Teachers are the ONLY employees who are responsible for students learning the content of math, science, social studies and language. Mastery of this content is the ONLY reason the school system exists and the ONLY reason we pay school taxes:
https://pats.dekalb.k12.ga.us/

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So MACE was right when it picketed the DeKalb County Board of Education last fall, stating that the “DeKalb School Board S-x!”? Hmm. MACE…proven to be right again! Ha!

http://georgiateachersspeakout.com/2011/09/08/mace-christens-dekalbs-new-superintendent-cheryl-atkinson-baptized-board-members-tom-bowen-eugene-walker-and-jay-cunningham-dekalb-oir-chief-ronald-b-ramsey-also-sprinkled-teachers-will-n/

http://www.theteachersadvocate.com

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@behindenemylines,

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are a very bright individual!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Vince,
I hear ya.
I just don’t think you and other teachers hear us.
We ALL do training on our own time and on our own dime.
We ALL have had our benefits reduced or like me, have had them cut altogether.
We ALL are burdened with paperwork and stuff that’s “not our job.”
We ALL have less job security.
It’s not just teachers.
I just think teachers don’t realize that or don’t want to accept it.
Good gracious, it’s called the great recession.
We who are overworked are the lucky ones…we are employed.

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@dekalbite@Fred…………As a Dekalb taxpayer… as well as a retired Dekalb teacher …I did click on your link to see for myself the administrative positions being posted. I AM STUNNED AND APPALLED ~~~!!! As I said earlier on this blog, this budget could be adjusted and balanced if anyone would just form a committee [hate that word] of teachers and retired teachers to address the problem and make the cuts . The cuts would be made by experienced professionals with no “friends and family” obligations. The only obligation would be to the students and parents of Dekalb. This is not BRAIN SURGERy or ROCKET SCiENCE……It is simply a matter of relinquishing power to the professionals who actually know what is needed and what is superfluous and trusting them to make good decisions.

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“Get the budget and show me the line item and amount that DCSD paid into whatever it is you think went to Gwinnett and I will personally refund that amount.”

Gwinnett is receiving around $40,000,000 in equalization funding and DeKalb is losing around $100,000,000 in equalization funding.

DeKalb doesn’t send the money to Gwinnett per se. Gwinnett is a receiver of equalization funding and DeKalb is a giver in the equalization funding.

If you want to know how it works, why don’t you google it?

Any way you cut it, DeKalb sends the state $100,000,000 more than we get back from them since we are considered a “wealthy” county.

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Well said Pardon My Blog.

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The equalization grant funding issue has been addressed here before: http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/06/19/are-poor-systems-driving-pintos-while-gwinnett-cruises-in-lamborghini/?cp=all#comments

The issue is that, even after revisions this year, equalization funding still increased in Gwinnett, while dropping in some other rural districts with fewer opportunities to raise property taxes. It’s true that DeKalb, Cobb, Fulton, etc. don’t get any funds from the grants, but I don’t get the part about DeKalb losing $100K in funding.

The links to district QBE Allotment sheets, including equalization grant funding amounts (based on student FTEs), can be found on the Ga DOE website under Budgets.

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Every system gets adjusted the local 5 mills, though, based on FTE count for that system. (Gwinnett’s is $141,819,247 for FY 13) Don’t think raising the millage rate impacts that; the state just expects a system to cover the minimum of 5 mills. Raising the millage rate for property tax allows a system to pay above the state minimum in staffing, funding,and to cover the state’s austerity cuts. Someone mentioned being paid at state salary scale as a teacher; the state covers $52,701 of your superintendent’s salary.. For the overpaid secretaries at your CO? The state allocates one, at a salary of $14,166. Each principal and assistant principal nets $52,701 if they are on a 12-month contract. The rest of their salaries, and the full salaries for those 129 assistant principals over the state allotment, comes from your property taxes. For most daily-direct-student-contact earned positions (teachers, counselors, media specialists,etc.), your property taxes only cover county supplements because the majority of those salaries are covered by the state. See why cutting back those positions are doubly egregious? (Source: GA DOE Weights for Funding Formula)

Tax revenues in GA are primarily from state individual income tax (45%) and sales tax (29%).

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Teachers just got this today:

To: All Principals
From: Kendra March, Deputy Superintendent, School Leadership and Operational Support
Through: Dr. Cheryl L. H. Atkinson, Superintendent
Subject: Open House/Curriculum Night
Date: July 17, 2012

In an effort to enhance parental involvement, the DCSD will hold an Open House and a Curriculum Night. The Open House is a time for students to meet their teacher(s) and visit their classroom(s). In addition, this will be a time for parents to sign up for various school related jobs/responsibilities such as PTA, Room Mother/Father, etc.

Curriculum Night is a time for schools to create their own curriculum night presentation. Some suggested topics should include: CCGPS, Safe School process, Success for All overview (SFA schools only), Parental Involvement activities, Parent-Teacher Conferences dates and other pertinent school information related to improving student achievement.

The Open House has been designated as follows:

Open House Wednesday, August 8, 2012 2:30 – 4:30 pm 9th Graders and New Students Only
4:30 – 6:30 pm High School Returning Students

Open House Thursday, August 9, 2012 4:30 – 6:30pm Middle School

Open House Friday, August 10, 2012 4:30 – 6:30 pm Elementary School

Curriculum Nights will be the month of September. Please adhere to the schedule below:

Elementary School Curriculum Night 1st Week in the month of September

Middle School Curriculum Night 2nd Week in the month of September

High School Curriculum Night 3rd Week in the month of September

Kendra D. March
Deputy Superintendent, School Leadership and Operational Support
DeKalb County School District
1701 Mountain Industrial Blvd
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
678 676-0720 office
678-676-0193 fax
Kendra_March@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

So on top of everything else, they want us to work 2 extra hours? What a joke!

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“Raising the millage rate for property tax allows a system to pay above the state minimum in staffing, funding,and to cover the state’s austerity cuts. ”

But DeKalb now does not even cover the state minimum pay for teachers. They have used the extra local funding to keep all those admin and support personnel employed. So we are paying through the nose in property taxes for teacher supplements and meanwhile they are cutting teaching positions and cutting teachers’ pay.

Look at the hundreds of personnel in DeKalb that make over $100,000 a year. NONE of them are teachers.

DeKalb refuses to publish ANY salary schedules except for Teachers. EVERY other metro system publishes the salary schedules for non teaching employees. This is the most non transparent school system in the metro area. Look at this link. NO salary schedules are published except for teachers:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/human-resources/

Now look at Rockdale County school system:
http://rockdale.k12.ga.us/about/fs/hr/employbenefits/Pages/default.aspx

And Fulton County school system:
http://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Human_Resources/Pages/Salary_Schedules_12_13.aspx

Can you see the difference in the information DeKalb REFUSES to provide and other metro systems?

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I believe that Dekalb’s issues boil down to pure mismanagement. There are districts that are doing just fine and will not have furlough days. Management is the issue and voters should consider if incumbents for the school board are capable of handling their tax dollars. The ability to budget effectively is crucial to the upcoming school board elections. It is past time to streamline and CUT THE BUREAUCRACY.

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From the staffing audit, it appears that the reason they don’t publish salary schedules is that they don’t really have them. This certainly supports the friends and family program but is “a questionable management practice.” When will the stakeholders in DeKalb demand changes?

“No clear core responsibility definition for various job families –secretaries, specialists, coordinator, managers for directors – makes classification of new positions problematic.
In the absence of clear guidelines, jobs can be legitimately placed anywhere (provides flexibility, but is an questionable management practice).
Recommendation:
Proliferation of current titles results in ever growing number of titles without clear internal hierarchical relationships – definition and salary range leveling needed.”
Job

http://dekalbschoolwatch.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/full-report-phase-i-dcss-audit-jan-2012.pdf

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Dekalb teacher moans and groans about curriculum night at school and complains “So on top of everything else, they want us to work 2 extra hours? What a joke!”
It’s two hours, Dekalb teacher. From 4:30 to 6:30 so that working parents can meet their child’s teacher and hear about the education plan.
When do you think they should have it ? From 1:30 to 2:30? At 3 p.m.?
Don’t you understand that parents have jobs and most of them are having to leave work to race to make it at 4:30 p.m. so they can meet you?
Teachers like you complain that parents don’t get involved in their child’s education, yet you whine when parents do…
Do you see how you sound to us?
Honestly, your complaining about having to work all the way to 6:30 makes you sound like a spoiled brat.
Do you wonder, really wonder, why your profession gets little respect?
Just listen to yourself.
Two whole hours….
Sheesh.

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dekalbite@ 8:43 pm – “We have plenty of places to cut”

I am simply not seeing where DCS can find $20 million in cuts.

Let’s look at the numbers you listed. Suppose you made 20% cuts to Security ($2.4 M), Maintenance ($2.6 M), Special Ed Lead Teachers ($1.6 M), Coaches ($2.6 M) and Coordinators ($1 M).

Also, figure on completely zeroing out Fernbank ($3M), Transportation to “choice” schools ($2M), and Transportation to conferences ($1.5M).

Here’s the total: $2.4 + $2.6 + $1.6 + $2.6 + $1 M + $3 + $2 + $1.5 == $16.7

You still don’t have the $20 million you need in order to have a balanced budget.

I don’t even know if making across-the-board 20% cuts to security, maintenance, special ed, coaches and coordinators would be legal…. but I am sure they would be devastating to the schools.

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@Married with (School) Children, the number Michael Perrone provided at the meeting this week that represented the teacher RIF was $13 million, so you found $16.7 pretty easily! Sounds good to me.

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Publishing salary schedules is necessary so that taxpayers can see what personnel are being paid (we are paying them). Taxpayers can compare what the salary parameters are for Assistant Principals, secretaries, maintenance workers, etc.

DeKalb County has many salary schedules. If the superintendent wanted to give a non teaching employee a healthy raise (say 30% to 50%) he simply placed gave that person a title and placed him/her on a salary schedule that would reflect that number.

The state Salary and Travel audit has some very good information, but you can’t really see what the titles and positions are and what salary schedule they are on. It’s information is very limited.

Can you tell me the stated salary range of an AP in DeKalb? Can you tell me the stated salary range of the bus drivers? Can you tell me the stated salary range of a secretary in the schools? Can you tell me the stated salary range for an executive secretary in DeKalb?

Is our stated salary range for counselors the same as Cobb County or Fulton County? I would like to compare our stated salary range for coordinators in DeKalb with those in Rockdale. I can see that Rockdale’s stated range for teachers is higher than DeKalb, but what about those non teaching coordinators?

DeKalb’s Human Resources Department has the salary schedules, but they have never wanted to publish them like the other school systems.

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“I don’t even know if making across-the-board 20% cuts to security, maintenance, special ed, coaches and coordinators would be legal…. but I am sure they would be devastating to the schools.”

So why do you say that? You have done no analysis.

For example, DCSS Lead Teachers for Special Education (complete paperwork for special ed and never teach a child) serve 130+ schools and cost $8,000,000+ a year in salary and benefits.

By contrast, Gwinnett Schools has 20+ Special Education Specialists serving 130+ schools costing them around $1,700,000. DeKalb has 7,500+ Special Education students while Gwinnett has 16,000+ Special Education students.

Compare our Security numbers. Here are the actual numbers from the state Salary and Travel audit you mentioned in your comment at 10:39 pm. Our Security numbers as compared to other systems are so out of line it borders on negligence:
http://dekalbschoolwatch.wordpress.com/dcss-spending/the-cost-of-security/

Compare our Maintenance numbers:
http://dekalbschoolwatch.wordpress.com/dcss-spending/the-cost-of-maintenance/

In most of these areas we need to cut MUCH more than 20%.

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@ Married: We accomplished exactly what we there for that day. We had a particular agenda which was accomplished. Our membership is strictly confidential and you, as an anonymous blogger, are certainly not privy to our specific agenda. But, as a matter of pure dictum, we thought that we would also declare that the “DeKalb School Board S_x!” It, along with mentioning Jay, Eugene, and Tom on the signs on Mountain Industrial Boulevard during rush hour traffic seemed to have its effect. (We also talked about Ron Ramsey and Cheryl Atkinson on the signs.) Unlike some groups who make a pretense that they are going to change the entire school system (which is a joke), our mantra at MACE is “protecting and empowering classroom educators…one member at a time.”

You obviously are not a member of MACE — and you may even be an administrator (and in this case, you could not be a member of MACE) — but, if you were, you would know what MACE accomplishes for you as a member. Also, unlike other groups, we don’t waste our time kissing the asses of the school board members or the superintendent. We just simply stated the plain facts about the DeKalb School Board and the administration, and you seem to have a problem with this. You have the rest of your life to get over it. Ha!

http://www.theteachersadvocate.com

http://www.georgiateachersspeakout.com

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Dr. John @ 12:38 AM:

I am sorry, but I simply do not understand how holding up “DeKalb School Board Sux!” signs *last* fall has anything to do with the current DCS budget crisis.

You point out that you have your reasons for not explaining the connection…. but you are the one who posted about the “Sux” signs.

The Occupy Movement, the democracy movement in Egypt, the protests at the Wisconsin State House, Slutwalks, the Trevon Martin rallies, and MACE holding up “Sux” signs: one of these things is not like the others!

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I realize this is probably a “non-issue” point, but can’t help but wonder what the cost is of cell phones to all principals (not sure about APs), everyone at the Brantley center and everyone at the Golden Palace? You know all of them were also given ipads? What is the reasoning behind this? I am sick and tired of being told that the money “comes from a different budget”. I have often wondered why the QBE money was not addressed and stopped. But if it was, would have been spent anyway on something stupid. WE NEED a comprehensive audit. NOW.

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@Once Again – I agree with you completely. Why wait around for “fairies?”

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Total threadjack, but I am lamenting the demise of the original DSW. Perhaps, Cerebration, you left because you could not deal with the thoughtless demeanor of those who now run DSW2? I probably would have too…

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“For example, one DSW2 analysis uses “Security costs per-pupil” and compares DeKalb against affluent suburban counties (Gwinett and Cobb)…. while completely ignoring the demographic differences. ”

Not true. The analysis was done for ALL metro systems INCLUDING demographically similar systems. Wouldn’t you say that APS, Clayton, and Marietta City are at least as poor as DeKalb and have just as many minority students? Yet their cost per pupil for Security is so much less than Dekalb? Every per pupil dollar you divert to Security means one less dollar to pay for teachers who instruct the students.

Here is the link again for you to compare DeKalb to APS, Clayton County and Marietta City Schools (demographically similar systems):
http://dekalbschoolwatch.wordpress.com/dcss-spending/the-cost-of-security/

“My feeling is that DCS *should* have much higher special education costs because DeKalb is more likely to have children that need those services.”

But the numbers don’t show that. Gwinnett has 17,600 special ed students to DeKalb’s 8,000+students yet we have 4.5 times as many NON TEACHING special ed admin and support personnel and spend 4.7 times as much ($8,000,000) as Gwinnett ($1,700,000).

Look at the achievement rates for DeKalb ($8,000,000 in special ed admin and support) versus Gwinnett ($1,700,000 in special ed admin and support). We have poorer outcomes for more money spent:

Look at the stellar results that Gwinnett has with their 17,600 special education students:

http://archives.gadoe.org/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=105&PTID=44&CTID=83&Source=APR%20Math&PID=38&CountyId=667&T=1&FY=2011
(click on APR Math and then on APR ELAR)

Now look at DeKalb’s results with 8,000+ special ed students:
http://archives.gadoe.org/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=105&PTID=44&CTID=45&Source=Elementary&PID=38&CountyId=644&T=1&FY=2011
(click on APR Math and then on APR ELAR)

And yet they want to eliminate special ed teachers and paras in DeKalb while they want to keep all the highly paid non teaching special ed administrators. We are so not focused on the students.

You must not be clicking on the links to read the data. All data has links to credible sources. What is your data? Can you link it to credible sources? Readers can look at the data and its source and then make up their minds.

Source for Special Education administrators:
state Salary and Travel audit – 2011
Sort for Special Education Specialists

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@Fred, I’ve been going through all the 2011-2012 HR reports to do some analysis. It seems in a couple of instances, the same employee was given 2 different “field” assignments. I hope they didn’t get paid twice.

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The large school systems in Georgia such as Dekalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, etc need to be broken up into smaller school districts so there is more local accountability. For instance, Dekalb should be at least three separate districts with more local control. Just as people are incorporating in to smaller cities to get control the same thing should be happening with these Mega-districts. What would it take to move to smaller districts?

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Enter your comments here

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I just post just data Fred with links to credible sources. Readers and commenters of this blog and DSW2 can read the data for themselves and make up their own minds. If you think it is erroneous, the. post your data with links to credible sources and then readers and commenters can weigh the data and reach conclusions. Most readers and commenters of an education blog are pretty astute.

BTW- I don’t know any of the people who run DSW2 so I don’t know why they banned you. As Cerebration suggested many times, you guys need your own blog.

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It is time for (1) the State to step in since SACS and others will not and appoint individuals with proper backgrounds to run the system and (2) split the system into two systems. This has gotten to be such a debacle and is an embarrassment for us all. It will affect the students when they apply for colleges this year, it will affect housing prices, and it will affect the county’s ability to attract businesses, etc. It is bad enough that people think of DeKalb County as “little Detroit” given all the crime but now all of this!

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@bu2 – Who is Bowen’s favorite?

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Bowen’s favorite would be Melvin Johnson, former Deputy Superintendent of Dekalb Schools and a long time insider. Also, a high ranking New Birth (Eddie Long’s church) member. Looking at his website he promises low class sizes and step increases for teachers, but no specifics on how to pay for them. Does anyone think he will cut the friends and family? He is backed by many powerful former highly paid DCSS administrators who are retired now but still wield a lot of influence.

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OOPS!
I forgot to add the link to the NYTimes article
“Come On, China, Buy Our Stuff!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/magazine/come-on-china-buy-our-stuff.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

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Dekalbite, you were rightly critical that DeKalb Teacher salary schedules were not available online. Perhaps this was loaded recently,

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/human-resources/teacher-salary-schedule

Please share this on DSW since I obviously cannot…

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I come from a school system in Europe where the assistant principals are full time teachers. The principal still teaches a class. They all know how hard the job of a teacher is and do not have time to create extra work for the teachers.
I am still ( I have been fearing for my job now three times the past two years) a teacher in Dekalb and I am soo upset with everything that has been going on. Mr. Deal is right— good teachers are the heart of good education. The whole situation could have been used to make the schools better—let the bad teachers go. Instead, very good teachers had to go at our school just because they were one year less in the county than their colleague, teaching the same subject. But the one being there longer is by far not as good as the teacher they let go. Who suffers???? The students!!
Young, energetic teachers had to go and will be lost for the system.
The climate in the schools will be horrible when we will go back. Teachers are tooo scared to say anything, just being happy that they have not been fired.

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Fred in Dekalb, thanks for the link to the salary schedule. Check out this link for the salary schedule in Muscogee County in Columbus, GA:
https://www.muscogee.k12.ga.us/Employment/Pages/Salary-Schedules.aspx
The teacher salary list on this page includes the state salary scale so the public can see just how much Muscogee County is contributing to teachers’ salaries. In the case of Dekalb County all employees with a Master’s degree with between 6 and 12 years of experience will be making less than what the state pays. How is that legal or possible? Can someone please explain this?

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The BOE members have put up their own interactive blogs. Wouldn’t hurt to hit them up. They seem to be relatively responsive to comments.

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@Dunwoody Mom
That’s what education is about. Learning to evaluate various data and opinions and forming your own conclusion. Group think and political correctness are the anti-thesis of education. Unfortunately, by our choice of professions and friends, we tend to be around people who think just like ourselves. Its stimulating for adults, let alone children, to hear different viewpoints.

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“Dekalbite, you were rightly critical that DeKalb Teacher salary schedules were not available online.”

No. That is not what I said. I have the old and the new salary schedule. We are paying our teachers less than ever as we have cut their pay.

What I said is we only have he salary schedule for TEACHERS. We do not have ANY salary schedules for NON TEACHERS even though non teachers make up most of our staff.

Taxpayers cannot see the position titles of the non teaching staff in DeKalb or their salary schedules so we can’t compare our non teaching staff salary schedules with other counties. For example, we can’t compare the salary range for Assistant Principals to other metro Assistant Principals or a secretary to another secretary. EVERY other metro systems publish this information as a matter of public record because the public pays their salaries.

Look at this link. NO salary schedules are published except for teachers:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/human-resources/

Now look at Rockdale County school system:
http://rockdale.k12.ga.us/about/fs/hr/employbenefits/Pages/default.aspx

And Fulton County school system:
http://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Human_Resources/Pages/Salary_Schedules_12_13.aspx

Can you see the difference in the information DeKalb REFUSES to provide and other metro systems?

Thanks nanayh for adding the Muscogee webpage. That is transparency. DeKalb has been repeatedly asked to post the non teaching position titles and their pay scales, but they have not done so.
https://www.muscogee.k12.ga.us/Employment/Pages/Salary-Schedules.aspx

What a difference in your school system’s administration and DeKalb!

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I am a teacher for DCSS. I have been in Pre-K for many years now and not by choice. I am repeatedly told that I am so good at my job they can’t risk losing my expertise by sending me to another grade level. Last year I was promised to go to first grade but a change in leadership squashed that and I was told that it is the principal’s building and I will teach the grade level she assigns me to. This was told to me by both H.R. as well as, O.D.E. I was told the last week of this past school year that my teaching assignment for 2012-2013 would be Kindergarten and was given a room assignment. As of today I have been told that I will be returning to Pre-K facing loss of pay and benefits. This is due to instructions from the county office. My question is, I sign the same contract as every teacher in the county which states I am an employee of D.C.S.S., not I am an employee of Pre-K. I have seniority over the majority of the teachers in my building so why is it that I am facing the pay cut and not someone with less years and less experience. All of my evaluations are outstanding and I also am a past Teacher of the Year for the county. O.D.E. is truly a joke and David Schutten has NEVER wanted to help teacher’s who are in Pre-K, not to mention that he is in favor of making cuts to the teachers now! I would appreciate any and all help!

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@dekalbite…. you need to go to open.georgia.gov If you know the name of the person you want to look at, go to the county (DeKalb) and type in that person’s last name, otherwise it’s in alphabetic order. Take a look at Tekshia Ward-Smith, Ramona Tyson, Tony Hunter, Jerome Francis, Terry Segovis, Marsha Cunningham. You can also look by job titles. I’m not sure if the board members are there. Never thought to look.

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dekalbite, sorry for misquoting you earlier regarding the salary schedules. I wholeheartedly agree with you regarding the need for greater transparency in this area for non teachers. One can only speculate that Dr. Atkinson is still completing assessing the positions actually needed in the school system, based on the results from the HR audits. I recall the BOE during Lewis’s tenure voted not to have a personnel audit performed, despite having qualified responses to an RFP. We all recall the audit requested by Brown never seemed to turn up when requests were made to see the results. Regardless, I’m sure you will continue to request this kind of transparency for citizens also.

You mentioned about you will *put up with a few body slams* however what would you do if you were banned from DSW because of your comments regarding FSC? While I agreed with your overall point on FSC needing to be self sustaining, I thought you went overboard with some of your comments. Like you, I provided verifiable links and data also though it seemed my perspectives and insights were not welcome. As I did with this post, I was willing to acknowledge if I was incorrect or not clear in what I said. From several other posts in this blog, it is interesting to see that I’m not the only one banned.

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Now that I have been FORCED into leaving the system…. I feel sorry for anyone that still works for them! Indeed.com and snagajob are my best friends right now. Food stamps, unemployment, etc, etc!

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I thought they blocked you because you kept asking the same questions over and over even when given the answer.

Ms. McGill’s “rant” challenged District 6 DeKalb voters to ask themselves if they want to maintain the status quo or do they need new blood on the BOE. She also sparked a discussion about the disparity between north and south Dekalb schools. I have seen comments by Ms. McGill that she admires the fiscal responsibility and budgetary interest of Nancy Jester. It would appear that we need some people on the BOE who are interested in fiscal responsibility and want to dig deeper into these budget recommendations and implementations that have resulted in the highest taxes and worst student achievement in the metro area. Here is a link to her post. If you have ever taught in south DeKalb or live in south DeKalb you know she is on target:
http://dekalbschoolwatch.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/press-release-from-denise-mcgill/

Melvin Johnson is probably the best positioned to win Mr. Bowen’s seat because he is a former Deputy Superintendent and administrative insider who is backed by the power elite in South DeKalb. The friends and family members are backing him so this race should be interesting. I hope Ms. McGill who has children in the DeKalb system has some strong supporters and a good grass roots organization. I don’t know too much about the other candidates in her district. I am busy in my own district trying to get my neighbors to elect someone the polar opposite of Paul Womack.

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Most or maybe all metro systems have gone from a Pre-K model in the schools to a Pre-K model in the private daycare centers so I’m not sure what a lawyer can do. DeKalb has been the last holdout in the metro area to pay Pre-K teachers on par with the other grade level teachers, and really the last holdout to have Pre-K within the schools. In addition, DeKalb does not get any monetary credit towards facilities cost from the state when they house Pre-K. That is one of the reasons the other metro systems do not house Pre-K in their schools, but rather let the daycares handle Pre-K with teachers certified in Early Childhood.

DeKalb should not be slashing so many Kindergarten positions (24 to a class without a para and 29 with a para) and then GotBusted would have been able to stay in the Kindergarten position. Of course DeKalb should not be slashing teaching positions anyway. We lost over 600 teaching positions under Lewis (275) and then Tyson (300+) and now we are losing hundreds more under Atkinson. It seems the employees that are truly expendable are the teachers. I think they would RIF the students if they could figure out a way to do that.

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Nanayh, Have you been told by your school adm. that you will be receiving a letter once the DCSS legal eagles figure out what they can/cannot do with the Pre-K teachers? I really do believe we teachers in Pre-K have a case. How can they cut pay and benefits of people who have been assigned to Pre-K not asked to be in Pre-K. At this point I am being forced to teach this gr

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Fulton cut pre-K staff to state pre-K salaries (also Pre-K parapros – to around $13K) a couple of years back. (Elimination of pre-K general fund.) http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/03/10/fulton-schools-these-cuts-will-be-felt-by-students-and-parents/ Then they cut the number of days pre-K was offered and pre-K teachers left in droves. http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/10/11/pre-k-teachers-leave-in-droves-georgia%E2%80%99s-reputation-as-an-early-childhood-leader-is-tarnished/

Someone I know could literally walk to her job as a pre-K para in east Roswell, which was great because her kids were at the school and the health insurance was needed by her family. In the great Fulton RIF of 2010, she was assigned to a school in Hapeville or East Point with her salary cut from $18K to around $13K. Luckily they weren’t in a situation where she HAD to get the health insurance, but for those who did HAVE to have a job – horrible!

I contend that our contracts should be titled agreement to indentured servitude, not employment agreements. They basically say that we agree that we can lose our certification license if we reneg but they can assign us anywhere in the system our certification can be used OR, if economic conditions merit, they can cancel their commitment to employ us. Reasonable, yes?

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Most daycares suppliment the state pay and provide free daycare for the children of employees. It is also probably easier to teach Pre-K in a day care than in the public schools. I agree that the program should be moved to the daycares, but the DCSD waited too long to inform the public. They shouldn’t have held a lottery in the first place. Now they must have Pre-K for at least another year and are faced with all of these problems with paying teachers. Didn’t Dr. Atkinson tell Nancy Jester at one of the board meetings that it is not legal to cut people’s pay who make a certain amount? However, it must be legal to cut pay based on a position such as Pre-K because that is what they are doing to us. I suggest that they also cut the pay of people making more than teachers on Dr. Atkinson’s new pay scale by a certain percentage to help the budget and morale of teachers.
The people making more in salary range than teachers include: managers ($66,967-$106,66), coordinators ($54,807.00-$106,606), assistant principals ($61,831-$112,725), principals ($84,638-$118,482), directors ($85,725-$116,994), administrative leadership ($119,908-$122,471) and division heads ($159,885).

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@Pride and Joy
July 17th, 2012
10:08 pm
Dekalb teacher moans and groans about curriculum night at school and complains “So on top of everything else, they want us to work 2 extra hours? What a joke!”
It’s two hours, Dekalb teacher. From 4:30 to 6:30 so that working parents can meet their child’s teacher and hear about the education plan.
When do you think they should have it ? From 1:30 to 2:30? At 3 p.m.?
Don’t you understand that parents have jobs and most of them are having to leave work to race to make it at 4:30 p.m. so they can meet you?
Teachers like you complain that parents don’t get involved in their child’s education, yet you whine when parents do…
Do you see how you sound to us?
Honestly, your complaining about having to work all the way to 6:30 makes you sound like a spoiled brat.
Do you wonder, really wonder, why your profession gets little respect?
Just listen to yourself.
Two whole hours….
Sheesh.
*************************************************************************************You and other parents have absolutely no idea what we as educator contend with daily. Yes, we complain, yes, we want parental involvement that is POSITIVE, yes, we have chosen education as a career, yes, for the utmost part of our careers we love what we do. However, we chose a profession with the expectation that we are paid for what we are expected to do and do with love for our profession. Nonetheless, we are constructive citizens paying our way to live a comfortable life. I think that parents and others seem to think that teaching is our lives. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, we have lives outside of our jobs. And, for most educators we have to make strong efforts not to neglect our own families for yours.
We as working citizens be it teachers or others we all work for a pay check bottom line!!!!!!!!!!! I have made this statement repeatedly on this blog: “If you are not on the inside you really have no idea what really goes on.” There are many of you who think you do but please know this-no matter how close you think you are to your child’s teacher or that family member who is a teacher still will never let you know all that goes on.

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@can someone help? No, I have not received any kind of notification whatsoever. The only reason that I know anything about my situation is through following the blogs (Fred, that is why I am so thankful to DSW- it has served as my only source of relaible information about some of these board meetings and what is being decided at them. The news and this blog have not been publishing much about the situation in Dekalb. I do agree, that some of the moderators can get rude, but I just try to ignore the rudeness and beeline for the invaluable information/facts/sources that are often published on DSW). I have heard that at this point the hands of the principals are tied. I think we are stuck teaching Pre-K and will be forced to teach at the state level (approximately $28,000/year) or resign. I do not know anything about the benefits. Are we losing more benefits than other teachers on top of losing so much pay?

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@bu2,
A lot of South Dekalb is stuck in the 60s and 70s when minority schools were deprived of resources while the white schools got what they wanted.
******************************************************************************************************************
That is still true however, not in the sense that the southside thinks or even thought. Please keep in mind that the northside parents are willing to do what it takes to get things done. On the south end most of our parents would rather come to the school and disrespect the teachers and other staff. I have been on the southside for over 13 years and I have yet to see a parent come to the school and take their child to the school library to read a book with them, research an assignment, check out a book with their child, etc. These are the types of things that happen on the northside. If you are speaking of any schools on the northside that don’t have what is needed I can assure you that they are schools with a very high population of other cultures of students verse Americans. And, the reason for that is because for the most those parents don’t know what to do.
The only time you can get parents to come to the school for anything on the southside is if their children are on stage dancing or doing something that is totally unrelated to academics. Oh, don’t let me forget when there is free food.

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dekalbite@ 4:57 pm: “I think the data that DeKalb spends $8,000,000 on 90 non teaching personnel in their special education program to serve 8,000+ students while Gwinnett spends $1,700,000 on 20 non teaching personnel to serve 17,600 students is very interesting.”

Your data for Gwinnett strikes me as bogus. Gwinnett has 123 schools; does each “non-teaching personnel” really cover 6.15 schools and/or 880 students each?

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@dekalbite, a blog that limits the “dialogue” to viewpoints that the moderator agrees will basically become irrelevant in time. It is only through open dialogue that true conversation and results can come to pass. If DSW2 is going to be a blog whereby the moderators will delete posts and disallow discussions from certain individuals, then that needs to be a disclaimer on the blog.

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Regarding the pre-K teacher issue, at the first part of the last two-part Board meeting on the RIF, Dr. Atkinson spoke plainly that all of our pre-K teachers are K-5 certified and that they couldn’t just be forced to continue to teach pre-K at the (greatly reduced) state salary. Since I’m not a teacher I didn’t understand the ramifications, but what I thought is that those pre-K positions would be RIF’d and then the pre-K positions at the new salary would be posted. Current pre-K teachers could apply for those but would also be eligible for any other K-5 openings.

However, I think this is probably a moot point now. If DCSD can’t RIF pre-K teachers then they can’t really cut their salary to the state funded amount.

In addition, since there is a hiring freeze now, that further complicates things.

David Shutten was at both parts of the RIF Board meeting so he should be able to clearly explain what Dr. Atkinson said. It would probably be productive to contact him or HR rather than just worrying.

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“Your data for Gwinnett strikes me as bogus. Gwinnett has 123 schools; does each “non-teaching personnel” really cover 6.15 schools and/or 880 students each?”

I just counted them:
Elementary – 81
Middle – 26
High – 26
Total – 133
http://archives.gadoe.org/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=111&PID=62&PTID=69&CountyId=667&T=0&FY=2011

If you doubt the special education non teaching numbers, I will refer you to your post:
Go to “Salaries & Transportation Reimbursements” section on:
http://open.georgia.gov/
Surf over there and specify the dekalb school board. Once it loads page 1 of its search results, click the export to CSV button at the bottom of the page. That will let you save the file (salarytravelreport.csv) to your computer, allowing you to import it into your spreadsheet.”

Now do a sort on column B (job title). Scroll down until you reach Special Education Specialists. Copy and paste the Special Education Specialists rows into a new Excel page. Look at the number of Special Education Specialists and then use auto sum to calculate the expenditure on this group.

I urge readers and commenters to verify these figures for themselves. That’s the purpose of providing links to credible sources.

BTW – Gwinnett is a model of efficiency. The dictatorial style of their long time superintendent notwithstanding, they produce good student achievement even in their low income areas. Even while their low income areas have been steadily increasing, they have remained steady in terms of making adequate student progress. Minority and low income students have a much better chance of good to high student achievement in Gwinnett schools than in DeKalb schools. That’s called equity.

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While I loathe the management style of Alvin Wilbanks and question the makeup of the school board (it does not reflect the demographic of Gwinnett County), you can’t help but wish there was such calm in DCSD. Gwinnett is able to offer continuity across its schools because they are so large – high schools can be 3,000+ students. Do we want that in DeKalb? #1 – I am not wild about 3,000 students, but with high schools with 1,000 students you just can’t offer everything that may be needed/desired in a school and #2 – there will not be the money to even build these type of schools for years because SPLOST has been tied to specific projects and there is not much flexibility. We have elementary, middle and high schools of all population sizes. Parents and communities railed against closing their schools even when presented with facts that closing and consolidating would provide more education opportunities for their children. Alvin Wilbanks and the Gwinnett BOE? When they decide to close/consolidate/redistrict, well, it’s basically a done deal. There is no wimpiness involved. Unfortunately, the education our children in DCSD is not the #1 Priority of our BOE, so we end up with schools that cannot and do not serve our children well educationally speaking.

Another item to remember is the possible/probable overcrowding of high schools in the South part of the county due to the end of AYP transfers. There are high schools in that area that have traditionally lost hundreds of students to AYP receiving schools. Those students will not be staying in their home schools. Some of these schools will most likely be overcrowded in the coming years and the only relief will either be redistricting, portable classrooms or converting Arabia Mountain into a traditional high school.

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No apologist for the moderators at DSW. It’s their blog. They can delete comments (I’ve had some deleted) and send comments to spam (some of mine have ended up there as well). They are not a business. If you do not like DSW, don’t click on it and give it a webpage hit. You are free to do that. No one makes you go to a webpage.

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Maybe the attorneys who are suing about the 403B Matching funds can take this case as well…..I am sure there are some attorneys out there paying attention to this spectacle….

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It looks like the Fulton County 2011-2012 Pre-K salaries are now adjusted to the state level for new hires. Certified Pre-K teachers keep their salary level, but they have 21 days shaved off their school year with a reduction in pay commensurate for the 169 days they work:

http://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Human_Resources/Documents/Salaries%202011%20-%202012/FY12_PreK_Schedule.pdf

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DeKalbite, given we are going to the 2012-2013 school year, I’m not sure if the above information is still relevant. Below is the link for the upcoming school year. Ironically there are more day.

http://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Human_Resources/Documents/Salaries%202012-2013/FY13_PreK_Schedule.pdf

Did they only run Pre-K for 169 days in FY2012? This is what I mean by sharing data without the context.

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Looks pretty much the same as my post – Pre-K teachers from 2011 grandfathered in with pay. New teachers get state base. Only thing new is they now work 179 days. $1,500 more in pay for 10 more days for a certified teacher who is new to Pre-K in Fulton County.

Apparently, they only ran it for 169 days in Fulton this past year according to the link I provided. The point is they are now hiring Pre-K teachers at state base salary levels.

Not sure what your point is.

Don’t really see your point.

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GTCO-ATL, try telling the rest of the country that our BOE not the federal government (relaxing laws about home loan qualification requirements), Wall Street (lobbied for those changes and made money off those that got loans with bad products offered) and our legislature (changed law to allow foreclosures to be factored into home valuation) are the reasons for the financial crisis we are experiencing and see what reaction you will get. Home values in neighborhoods containing stronger academic schools were higher prior to the crisis and remain that way.

Why is it hard to some people to acknowledge reality?

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[...] Is DeKalb waiting for a “budget fairy” to wave away its cash woes? He explained the board gave false hope and that he expects layoffs ultimately, or else the college program will commit income it doesn&#39t have and wind up in financial debt up coming summer, unable to make payroll. … for the following two many years, as a substitute of furlough days take away … Read more on Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) [...]

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Dekalbite, glad to see you are still reading this blog. To your point at 3:04, I merely wanted to point out that the salary for for credentialed and certified teachers was the same as the starting salary per the state schedule for first year teachers. To the second point at 3:16, that has ALWAYS been the case with respect to housing prices. The BOE has nothing to do with where people choose to live however they have an obligation to ensure all children get a quality education. My contention is many first time lower income home owners were probably more likely to purchase homes in areas where schools were not as strong. Due to circumstances beyond their control, many found themselves in foreclosures which further drove down home values in the surrounding area.

Please suggest to those at DSW that they should read Board Policy GBKA: Professional Personnel Lay-Off. My interpretation is that it should answer the question regarding how Pre-K should be handled. I can elaborate on my interpretation if you’d like. It also discusses what the superintendent is supposed to present to the BOE which RIFs occur. This goes back to my earlier point to Nancy is asking for detailed information that is over and above her duties as a Board member. While she seems like a hero to some, she may cause problems with SACs due to her level of questioning. Same goes for Don based on statements he made in his blog.

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Dekalbite, unfortunately here is the point where we begin to split again. I believe administrators play a key role in the success of a school system however I also believe that the decision to learn and participate in the learning process ultimately is the responsibility of each student. Not every student graduated during the glory days of this school district. Unfortunately we don’t have data to validate it. Because the metro area had three auto plants, many who were not cut out for school yet had a good work ethic were able to find jobs at the plant or one of the other places that needed good workers that could follow instructions (some probably got jobs through a friend or family member). Many of these people became good tax paying citizens that made contributions for making this a better place to live.

DeKalb had many students that did well academically and went on to do great things. The media did not talk much about Joe Six Pack who did not graduate but still did well. DeKalb (the affluent bedroom of the metro Atlanta area then) did very well, especially when compared to the rest of Ga, which was still primarily rural. This is not to demean the accomplishments of anyone but simply point out how many viewed things back then.

Based on the national statistics one uses, it shows that high school graduation rates peaked in the late 60’s/early 70’s. There was a downward trend for several years however it has been going up. A term completer has also come up, measuring those who either graduated high school or obtained an alternative credential. For consistency I’m still looking at high school graduate rate but merely pointing out that with all the data available, it is possible to take some out of context. How we measure the high school graduation rate varies and that has also raised questions about the validity of some of the data we’ve seen. My overall point is despite the challenges DeKalb is facing and taking into consideration the significant demographic changes over the past 30 years, looking at socioeconomic, family makeup and racial demographics, students are still progressing. I am NOT satisfied with the current progression rates.

There should be accountability for those in leadership positions, especially when the methods for helping students move forward do not work. This is why we see such high turnover of superintendents in urban districts 2-4 years), despite the high hopes and hoopla that occurs when they are initially hired, the reality of the challenges of teaching in urban districts comes to fruition. Every child can learn but the measures currently used are based on the same standard, regardless of where they began the school year. I understand the growth model will become the new measure (something I’ve been advocating for years, at least as a companion measure) for student performance. Schools that historical perform poorly on the CRCT will have a chance to demonstrated how much they have learned during a school year, regardless of where they started. I’ve contended this measure provides more information that can help diagnose the strength and weaknesses within each student. By research I’ve done, I understand several states use this (North Carolina being one) with positive results.

I believe responsibility also belongs with the students and their families. I don’t believe you subscribe to that thought though I know many on these blogs believe that. I’ve seen many great leaders over the years implement learning programs that have worked miracles for some however because the did not reach everyone, they along with their programs were deemed ineffective. Factor in the loss of jobs which exacerbates the real struggles many families have and the rise in single parent households (I believe children do best in two parent households even if the parents are not married but actively involved) play a contributing factor to student performance and the resulting measures. Of course there are exceptions but looking at data and observing my community over the years has shaped my conclusions.

I enjoy your posts and still believe we agree on the key issues. We are different people and our life histories have shaped our perspectives. I respect our difference as I know we are both working, in our own ways, to make this a better place to live. I wholeheartedly believe there is enough blame to go around when we consider where this school district is today

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I’ll start with this caveat, which should be obvious to all, no one likes the DeKalb Budget that was approved. It again, put all of the onus on the teachers, and ultimately our students. HOWEVER, this budget, along with the RIF items, was approved by the BOE. For the Board to now say, well, this is not acceptable, is troubling. #1, the school system is now dealing with an unbalanced budget (not allowed), #2. The BOE’s inability to allow the budget THEY passed is also troubling, and I guess, with this BOE, par for the course. The lack of action by this BOE has basically put our schools in chaos mode right now.

I am trying to locate one of the old SACS documents to the school district. I believe that in one of these documents, the BOE was told that once they make a decision, they need to move on and implement that decision. We all have our issues with SACS’ lack of inaction, but maybe this time around, this latest BOE nonsene will get their attention.

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Amen Dunwoody Mom! I believe they have not only put the school system but the employees that may have to be RIFd in a very bad position. It won’t provide enough time to handle the logistical planning for the start of school along with not providing ample opportunity for impacted employees to find another job. The collectively BOE is out of compliance in not having a balanced budget. That includes those that voted against the budget. I hope the state issues a warning to them to either make the tough decisions or requests their immediate resignations.

Please take a look at the Board policy I referenced at 4:37 PM, GBKA: Professional Personnel Lay-Off. Section IV mentions the package the superintendent provides the Board if a RIF is implemented. It does not mention detailed information about employees, the kind of thing Nancy and Don have been requesting. This is the kind of questioning that SACs has already commented about to the Board, getting too involved in day to day operations. I also interpreted that when all things are equal with all employees, seniority with the school district can be considered.

Please share this with others since policy governs how the school system is to be run, not opinions of how we think it should. Since those on DSW don’t welcome the information I share, maybe teachers who are wondering about their continued employment can use this and other policies to determine their status.

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Fred, I’m really torn on this issue of the board asking questions and wanting answers. If the BOE had asked more questions and had not just rubber stamped everything Crawford Long put before them or had not seen to ask what were the justifications for the budget it brought forth, maybe the school district would not be in the financial distress it finds itself in now. I guess there is a fine line in requesting information and getting involved in day to day operations of the school.

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1. The board approved a reduction in force on April 27, prior to the budget being passed. Many teachers were “non-renewed” as the school year came to a close because of over-staffing in their particular area (PE, music, etc.).

2. Subsequently, teachers were given contracts. The “new” RIF plan would terminate teachers that were given contracts. Those teachers would be entitled to fair dismissal hearings, etc. This further compounds problems with our legal fees.

3. The “budget” was passed, June 20 – and the Board was explicitly told that no further RIFs would be needed. The administration was clear on this. The BOE was told that budget cuts and the normal rate of attrition would provide for the absorption of all remaining teaching/para personnel without further RIFs. (Ms Jester voted against the budget and millage increase.)

4. The Board was not provided a detailed budget at the time of the vote. The only documents provided were a list of cuts and a list of increases in fixed costs that had not previously been budgeted.

5. The administration drives the budgeting timeline. The preparation was delayed in an unprecedented manner. Some of these delays were avoidable, some were not.

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Crawford Lewis, perhaps you have not seen the many posts I provided to Dekalbite regarding the restructuring done with the Central office. The current staffing level for the Central office is under 825 from its high of over 4,000. In fairness, then number was high because many of the positions were improperly coded as Central Office when in reality, they were school based positions. An example is the Title 1 teachers. A synopsis can be found at:

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/budget/central-office-positions-synopsis.pdf

This is a classic example of Dr. Atkinson inheriting a problem (bad data) and rectifying it however no one wants to acknowledge it. Common sense says that one of the first things anyone should do is make sure the data you are using to make decisions is valid. Otherwise you will continue to make decisions that could negatively impact you in the future. Isn’t that what we found out with the budget? In fairness, this is the kind of reality to those at DSW will never acknowledge because of their agenda. The bad data was not accumulated over night but over the life of this school district.

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Crawford said,

**I do not trust the DeKalb Central Office to police itself.**

**What I find so disgusting is that Dr. Atkinson paid $300,000 to commission a study to find out that DeKalb had hundreds of extra administrators and only cut 70 positions.**

**if you notice in my post I did not do any central office ranting and raving because yes Dr. Atkinson did allegedly shift those resources to back to the school house.**

Do you think these statements are in conflict? You don’t trust the central office, you complain about money spent on an independent personnel audit (one that those on DSW rightly requested) then half heatedly acknowledge that changes were made by suggesting the changes were *allegedly* made. When the report referred to administrators, many were in the Central Office. Many people have been either RIFd, reassigned or demoted. Several reassigned and demoted will be doing so at a lower pay rate I don’t know the extent of the RIFs but we should know more once the HR Report during the August meeting is posted.

There is a LOT of good information at DSW however those that run it lack humility. They want blood however forget that there can be collateral damage. Several good and long time employees have lost their jobs This happened when they cut the drivers education and media departments a few years ago. There are a few people that kept jobs even though they probably did not deserve to but a lot of non producers lost jobs too.

If you think that changes were not made to the Central Office in accordance to the link provided, you should follow up with SACs or the State BOE with your proof. There is an independent forensic audit on going (something else that those on DSW requested) that should help Dr. Atkinson understand the finances, among things. Based on what she has done thus far, I expect her to take action on the results it provides. I have a feeling it will reveal that special interests throughout the county got far more funding that everyone assumed. No proof, just a guess.

Something to consider, Dr. Brown requested a Personnel Audit so that he could understand the different job classifications and pay scales in the school district. He knew there were too many, it was a problem and was ready to make changes. He had already begun reassigning excess employees in the Central office to schools. He never got to finish that job. Do you wonder why?

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DeKalbite (formerly atl), ironically I reviewed part of the old DSW earlier and noticed the consistency with my comments. In the blog about Fran Millar recommending Brad Bryant as superintendent, Cerebration and I found middle ground in the conversation while acknowledging there were some differences of opinion. That’s what true dialogue is about unlike what the current moderators for DSW want. Different points of view are not respected or welcomed. Cerebration allowed differing opinions especially if they were backed by verifiable data. She demonstrated humility and that is missed.

At to clarify once again, misstatements were made about Dr. Berry that I merely corrected, such as her involvement with school level curriculum decisions. Her responsibility was oversight of the Title 1, Part A dollars and ensuring they were spent in accordance to Federal guidelines. I pointed out the CSIP for each school which to this day, you have never acknowledged as where curriculum decisions for each school are made with administrators, teachers and parents. As I understand, Dr. Berry spent Federal money without proper Board authorization. There is no excuse for someone with compliance responsibilities doing and and she was relieved of her duties. I agreed with that decision and stated so. Word on the street is that she contested being relieved of duties thus was assigned as a teacher to a school while the process was being reviewed.

I actually listed several of the good employee departments that were let go in my next sentence.. There were also several long time secretaries at the Central office let go, one who came to the DSW blog. After saying that the only one that needed a secretary was the superintendent, the moderator did empathize with this person because they knew them along with the quality of their work.

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Not only were you as a champion of Dr. Berry. Your number of comments were excessive. One post has 55 comments – 19 of them were from you seeking to deflect blame from the DCSS administration.
http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com/2011/06/tale-of-two-school-systems-part-iii.html

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Dekalbite (formerly atl) you are too funny! The same blog you reference has 17 posts from you. If my 19 explained to you and others how Title 1 works while providing links to verifiable information to back up my statements, what does that make you? This is not like the posts about FSC where you repeatedly listed the positions at FSC so many times that many asked you to stop. Whether you were right or not, your message got lost with your obsession.

Ironically that post provided incorrect information regarding the amount of money that was used for Title 1 Part A ($500,000) over a 5 year period. This referred to ALL Federal income to the school district. The Title 1 Part A allocation was under $140,000 for that period. That goes back to my point of misleading information being shared. It was not purposeful but clarity should be appreciated.

There is a LOT of data available on the internet but one must use it in context. Sometimes additional research is necessary. That message seems to have fallen on deaf ears with you. You saying that my having 2 posts more than you in a blog excessive where I provided links is like the pot calling the kettle black.

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“Ironically that post provided incorrect information regarding the amount of money that was used for Title 1 Part A ($500,000) over a 5 year period. This referred to ALL Federal income to the school district. The Title 1 Part A allocation was under $140,000 for that period”

I think you mean $500,000,000 in federal funding – not $500,000 and – $140,000,000 went to Itle 1 Part A – not $140,000.

So much money for negative returns is a problem. The administration hires every single teacher and sets the class sizes for every classroom. They tell the teachers what to teach and when and how to teach the curriculum. They set all policies and procedures for the school system employees and students. They allocate all funds and purchase all programs. They are the highest paid members of the school system. They must accept responsibility for students’ achievement levels. With this much power comes tremendous responsibility.

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“Why do you think administrators hire teachers? Is that how you were hired?”
So administrators don’t hire teachers in DeKalb? The last time I checked, the principal is an administrator. But the principals are hand picked cy the Superintendent. The buck really does stop at the top.

“Through Title 1, Part A, Instructional Coaches were hired. They were supposed to be Master Teachers that helped coach and remediate teachers that need assistance”

So where was the teacher buy-in? Did the teachers have a chance to evaluate the effectiveness of the Coach assigned to their school? Where is the performance objectives and the degree to which they met the performance objectives in terms of student achievement increases for these Coaches that cost over $10,000,000 a year? We are laying off teachers who directly instruct students and who can be tied to student performance for these Coaches. What are we getting for them?

“Sometimes the parent and/or the student should be fired, especially if they are compromising the learning process for students that want to be there.”

That is not the attitude that Rockdale and Marietta City have towards their low achieving students. Both of these school systems are demographically similar to DeKalb, but have much better student achievement. Blaming students and parents is not effective leadership. The truth is most of the administrators in DeKalb have no idea how to move low income, low parental support students forward. They resent taxpayers would compare them to more successful school systems who face the same challenges.

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More waste, fraud and abuse in DeKalb County…case closed!
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/principal-bookkeeper-under-investigation-after-aud/nP3Rb/

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DeKalbite, you may not realize it but you just agreed with me when you asked, “Then why has the DeKalb administration instituted the no zero policy? Why does the administartion require teachers to accept late work? Why is there such lax discipline in schools? Why are teachers pressured to change grades and give students grades they do not deserve?” All good questions!

Surely you don’t believe educators would instituted such an asinine and counterproductive practices and policies on their own? Elected officials typically pass laws based on requests from lobbyist or particular constituencies. The same applies to Board members and school administrators, they react to the wishes of PARENTS and the COMMUNITY, even if they may not be in the best interest of the entire community.

A classic example is Arabia Mountain not becoming a neighborhood school as it was initially sold to the entire community. Surely you don’t believe school administrators made that change without being lobbied by parents? Why do you think special transportation is such a hot discussion along with closing small schools even if they are not cost effective to operate? Yes, lobbying by parents, students and other members of the community influences some of the decision making by Board and administration members. This is why I’ve consistently said,

There is enough blame to go around…

Thank you for finally acknowledging this, even if you did so indirectly

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Dekalbite, have you spoken to any current teachers recently? If you did, you will find out that MANY are harassed by parents when it comes to changing grades. Tell you what, go on DSW and ask teachers how often they are asked to meet with parents about their possibly changing their grades or providing extra credit work to raise it. Ask them about the low expectations attitude that seems to be prevalent in schools today. It seems like you will be surprised at what you hear. There are some great teachers that are being asked to expect less from some of our students. It is not right because it ultimately hurts the students in the long run.

I have a friend that has children at Arabia Mountain. According to them, when the principal announced mid year they were eliminating the practice of allowing re-tests and make up work, many parents were very upset about it. The real world does not allow do overs when mistakes are made, why should the schools provide that for students, especially if some students make a choice not to do the work the first time around?

It is amazing because again you and I both have the same core beliefs in this area but disagree on the reasoning behind it. I don’t blame everything on the parents and students as you suggest. There are a LOT of great parents and students in our schools. I see myself as a realist and acknowledge there are a few parents and students that make it tough for others. Regretfully their wishes get greater consideration than the majority.

This is a collective problem that is shared by everyone. Cutting most of the administrators will NOT solve the problem with student performance. Ensuring all parties work collaboratively together for the betterment of the students will have the greatest impact. I’d welcome implementing realistic measures such as the growth model to determine if progress is being made over the course of a school year. I’ve said it more than once and will keep saying it,

There is enough blame to go around…

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Dekalbite, thank you again for sharing the link to the law on the Grade Integrity Act. I know a LOT of teachers that would welcome sharing that with students, parents, and administrators. Heck, if I were still teaching, I’d put it on each teachers bulletin board and in the main office for everyone to see. I still ask you to poll those on DSW to validate what I said.

The reality is that parents start with the teacher then escalate it to the principal. Based on how persistent the parent is will determine what the principal does. Haven’t you gone faster than 55 mph on 285, not because you wanted to but because you felt you had to in order to keep up with the traffic flow? Its against the law but many rationalize speeding nonetheless.

Remember what happened in the MLKing Jr case a few years ago, a brave teacher spoke out and look what happened. She lost her job and probably has a black eye from the perspective of the teaching profession. Yes, the administrator also lost their job (word on the street she was told to either retire or be fired. She retired to keep her retirement. In the APS cheating scandal, I know some teachers felt pressured to help students on standardized tests by their administrators. Unfortunately that did not excuse them from following through and they were rightly terminated. Those that refused went through a type of hazing many teachers are well aware of but at least they have their dignity.

The job of an urban superintendent and staff is tough, that’s why the average tenure is less than 4 years. All children can learn but the measures you use can determine how effective the superintendent will be. Again I say using the growth model will open eyes as to the progress low achieving students can make during a school year. I submit they can have higher growth than those who come to school well prepared, especially in the lower grades. Watch and see….

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DeKalbite, I’m really beginning to believe you enjoy this dialogue with me. No problem since we can’t have this on DSW. Their loss.

Hopefully you can agree we want the same outcome for the students and citizens of DeKalb however the sights we’ve seen on our life journey influences our thoughts for getting to that destination. Again I don’t disagree nor make excuses with what you’ve cited above. I will say that the teachers I’ve spoken with in the past about pressures to change grades never mentioned the law you provided, suggesting to me that they were not aware of it. I will do my part to ensure they are so consider that a positive from this discussion.

Any employee that conducts themselves in an unethical manner should be reprimanded. It seems because of the attention DeKalb employees get that they receive harsher punishments than others in government. I think back to some of the recent misdeeds of elected officials. Just an observation.

My belief is still firm that this community hired someone willing to make a change to long standing practices in Dr. Brown. He knew things were not right in this school district. As he began making changes, the powers in school district and community collectively undermined him and subsequently had him fired. Yes, DeKalb Schools has long been about power and regretfully sometimes that power has not been not used for the best of the entire county and all of its students.

Please recall that the original budget proposal submitted by Dr. Atkinson in May provided the least harm to the schools and teachers though it did include a 2 mill increase. Special interests influenced Board members to not accept that recommendation and we find ourselves in the position we are in now. One cannot deny that special interests have long influenced decision making in DeKalb Schools. Again, this is something I’ve seen on my life journey. Yes those in charge ultimately make the decisions but I also like to understand what influenced the decisions. Do you disregard that or have any interests in the motivations of special interests? I ask because I thought I read comments you made about Marshall Orson and his favoritism towards Fernbank. That seems to suggest that you feel it could influence his decision making if he is elected.

On an unrelated matter, that is why I’d like to see changes in the campaign finance laws because as they currently stand, I believe they allow those with money to unduly influence elections. Yes, the buck stops with the elected officials regarding decisions they make but it is interesting to know why they make those decisions.

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@whatever…well said!!!

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