DanvilleDelivery.com

Michelle O’Neil introduces herself at Candidates Night.

Nice to see Michelle come around on airing the budget meetings.  She opposed airing the meetings at the March 27, 2008 meeting, voted against airing the meetings on April 9, 2009, and voted against airing the meetings again on February 4, 2010 (minutes not yet published).  These votes are recorded in the minutes of the meetings.

Paul Shalek is running against Michelle — and for the rest of us.

 

 2010 TRSD BudCom Candidate Michelle O’Neil: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Nancy Steenson introduces herself at Candidates Night.

 

 2010 School Board Candidate Nancy Steenson: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Jennifer Caruso introduces herself at Candidates Night.

 

 2010 School Board Candidate Jennifer Caruso: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the first postapocalyptic school board meeting.  At the budget committee meeting following the deliberative session, Mike Mascola promised to ask the school board to record and broadcast budget committee meetings.  He did that and the school board voted unanimously to support the measure with the support of Superintendent La Salle.  The meetings won’t be broadcast live, but they will be captured, aired on TEN, and posted on the internet.

The calendar was ontopic as well.  Jack Paone told the board that eliminating early dismissals and late starts was common sense.  Mr. La Salle countered that the not-yet-funded teacher contracted included the nonteaching days and that the matter could be addressed in the next contract.  Mr. Paone asked if the teachers could agree to teach these days and Mr. La Salle promised to ask.  I’m not optimistic.  I’d like to see the teachers’ union rep testify on the matter.  I’ve heard from MANY teachers that they oppose the half days and that it is the administration and the union that insists on the extra days off.  Of course, if we fail to fund warrant article three, La Salle and the union may be more flexible. 

Vote NO on Article 3. 

There was a head scratching presentation by the Pupil Personnel Services team.  For some reason, TRSD has 30% more kids in IEPs than the state average.  And this number is down 10% from last year.  This is being blamed for everything from budget growth to the poor performance of the schools.   The question is why and that was not answered.  The PPS director and Superintendent La Salle crowed about the quality of our programs, but no member of the school board asked why a model special needs program is spending millions sending kids out of district.  PPS needs to be looked at carefully.  Evidence suggests we do a poor job mainstreaming marginal students and ship out the difficult cases at great expense to the community.

 

 TRSD School Board Meeting 2/18/10: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This year’s TRSD Deliberative Session was well attended.  If you missed the fireworks, here is the entire, unedited meeting.  Enjoy!

Watching the teachers and administrators file out of the PAC, there seemed to be relief that the operating budget warrant remained intact.  This meeting wasn’t about amending the operating budget warrant article — it was about amending the budget process.  The goal was to shine a light on a broken budget process and win public support for change.  I think we did that well.  We demonstrated via discourse and cross examination that…

• Mr. La Salle prepares the budget without input or oversight from the budget committee
• The budget committee does not have even a rudimentary understanding of the budget
• The budget committee routinely acts in violation of the law

Change begins March 9th.  We need to elect budget committee members who are committed to restoring the committee’s constitutional authority and credibility. 

 

 2010 TRSD Deliberative Session: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you watched or participated in Thursday’s TRSD Deliberative Session, you heard a bunch of numbers.  Before the meeting, I calculated  $56,760,387.62 as a reasonable budget — actual spend from 2008 adjusted for inflation minus funds for teacher raises on the ballot under a separate warrant article…

actual spend for 2008 was $53,816,390.62 (per La Salle)

3.8% inflation rate for 2008 (per http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
2.7% inflation rate for 2009 (per http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)

If you apply inflation for 2008 to the 2008 actual spend, you get: $55,861,413.46
If you apply inflation for 2009 to the 2009 calculated spend, you get: $57,369,671.62 for a 2010 budget.

Assuming all money spent in 2008 was money well spent, $57,369,671.62 strikes me as a reasonable budget for 2010.

Since the raises in the teacher contract would be part of the inflation, you’d want to subtract those from the budget: $57,369,671.62 – $609,284 = $56,760,387.62

$61,764,677 – $56,760,388 = $5,004,289 correction which is about 8%

When this number was presented as an amendment, the chair of the school board invited superintendent La Salle to describe the doom that would fall upon the school system if the budget were only allowed to grow at the rate of inflation.  La Salle immediately listed a bunch of cuts that included sixty educators.  A few members of the audience challenged his math.  After the meeting Mark Acciard checked his math and found that La Salle exagerated.  Here is Mark’s list… Read the rest of this entry →

 I believe I can speak for the majority of the elementary teachers when I say we do not want 1/2 days for professional development or meetings. We want time to teach our students what they need to know. We have no say in when or how many days we have early release, etc. It is dictated to us from the SAU. Do not lump us in with those that make decisions.

I’ve had a few teachers contact me about the Early Dismissals and Late Starts in the schedule.  This response is typical (copied from a contact received last night).  I have told La Salle and Suzanne Judd that I would support adding five days of pay to the budget if the teachers would agree to ‘develop’ on their own time.  The fish rots from the head and I think we could replace the school board and the superintendent.

If you look at the 2011 default budget compared to 2009’s actual spend, you may be surprised to find that while we were enduring furloughs, pay freezes, and layoffs, the school budget has increased 11%.  If you add in the cost of the new teachers contract, it has increased 12%.  A 12% increase in an era of deflation and cost cutting.

The bad news is that the 12% increase is completely contrived.  First, consider the contract.  The teachers union has negotiated a contract that includes a lump sum payment in the first year and double step increases in the second year.  Mr. La Salle has used current headcount to calculate the cost.  In reality, the long service teachers will retire after their lump so that that lump sum weights their pension.  These teachers will be replaced with short service teachers who will reap the double step in the second year.  The cost of the contract is likely to DOUBLE in the second year.

The second time bomb in the budget is the insurance line item.  Every year we vote on the budget BEFORE the insurer sets the costs for the year.  They provide a maximum ceiling and we budget to that.  This is ALWAYS several percent higher than the actual cost.  The difference is refunded to the taxpayers.  This year the ceiling was 22%.  Mr. La Salle got that maximum reduced to 13% to show a better number to the budget committee, but the maximum ceiling has no impact on actual cost.  In reality, he just spent next year’s surplus.

to create scheduled, sufficient, and sustained time for staff members to carry out the work of the school and collaborative professional learning communities

PLEASE watch this.  It’s just 30 minutes.  If you watch this, I believe you will…

1. vote against the teacher contract
2. participate in the deliberative session
3. vote your school board representative out off office

All of these things are good.  All of these things are necessary if you want to send your kids to good schools.

This year there were FOUR teacher development activities – four days in which our kids were in school long enough to meet the legal requirement but not long enough to learn anything.  For next year there was a plan to eliminate these nonteaching days.  This was rejected by administrators who INSISTED on four early release days PLUS three DOs — Days Off.  I’m going to keep my kids home for these days and urge all parents to do the same.  Shame on our School Board for allowing our School In Need of Improvement to cheat the kids out of three days of education.

When Jack Paone wonders why we need so many NONTEACHING DAYS King Richard shrugs, “It’s in the contract.”  I asked King Richard to address this matter in the just approved — and not yet funded – contract nearly two years ago.  At that time, he said, “That is off the table.”  I’m going to vote against the warrant to fund the new contract.  If the teachers want more money, they are going to have to teach more.

If education is important to you, contact me.  I’m going to organize an educational activity for each of the nonteaching days.  I will post notices on DanvilleDelivery.com no later than one week after the NONTEACHING  calendar is approved.  We won’t be alone.  One local newspaper has promised to join us.  I will be inviting ALL local and regional news organizations to join us. 

Second, I ask you to vote against the warrant that funds this contract.  We must vote against all such warrants until the teachers agree to teach. 

Please show your support for the children by joining me in voicing disapproval of our school district and its school board!  There is no better place to voice disapproval than the deliberative session onThursday, February 4, 2010 at the PAC between the high school and the middle school.  Bring signs.  Unseal the Minutes is a good sign.  Teach 180 Days is a good sign.  The school’s camera won’t acknowledge you, but my camera will!

PS The guy that seems to throw up in his mouth everytime someone suggests teachers teach is Scott Strainge.  I’m guessing the late starts were his idea.  We have sent Scott to Hawaii SEVENTEEN times for the children.  How many times has your family been to Hawaii in the last twenty years?  For Free?

 

 TRSD School Board Meeting 1/21/10: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download