http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20121119/OPINION02/711199969
Monday, November 19, 2012
Opinion: Tough Springfield school budget
After reading Friday's article on the Springfield school budget, I felt it was important to clarify both the process the administration took in creating our budget request and the actual product itself.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20121119/OPINION02/711199969
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20121119/OPINION02/711199969
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It appears that more than 3 anonymous posters are reading the Springfield Vermont News. Whose says public criticism goes unnoticed? The clowns in charge must be feeling the heat. Time to step it up a notch and demand resignations for incompetence.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't flatter yourself too much...it was the Rutland Herald article he was responding to, not the nasty comments on here.
DeleteSure he was....
DeleteAnonymouse... Zach McLaughlin must have felt compelled to expound about the budget process since so many readers(zero) of the Rutland Herald were posting glowing comments about the budgeting process? Liar, liar...pants on fire!
DeleteI would think he felt compelled by the blatantly wrong facts in the RH article. He did reply to the RH, not here. Of course with the stimulating discussion on this blog, with 3rd grade taunts like "liar, liar", why wouldn't he want to post here?
DeleteThat must be why you post here defending incompetence? Since no one saw fit to comment about the article on the Rutland Herald site and many did here why would anyone believe your fabricated excuse for the defensive answer that Zach suddenly felt compelled to write about? Maybe Zach knew that everyone here would call bullsheet on his tale?
DeleteZach’s reply here is clear and written at the third grade level needed for most readers of this blog. So let me try the same. Budgeting is a game in itself and if you never been involved with making a budget numbers that get presented can be very convincing. As with this budget, they say we need 9.4% but will settle for 3.4% to cover labor cost (teachers’ salaries and benefits). Isn’t that nice of them to give up 6%? Sounds good on paper, we need this but will settle for less to save the taxpayers’ money. Sounds like the shopping my wife did this weekend, only brought the stuff on sale we didn’t need and pointed out how much she saved us.
ReplyDeleteBoth school and town boards need to realize that everyone seems to want a little more these days. The State Government needs to raise a few pennies in taxes, the Federal Government needs a raise a few more pennies in taxes. Congress says we need to pay 13 dollars a year to help out a housing cost deficit, tax breaks for the middle class will be expiring and I can’t buy a soda at McDonalds without being asked to donate to some fundraiser. These dollars start adding up and none seem to going into my pocket, literality as many taxes are out of your check before you see your check.
So my question is, “are we suppose to feel better because you need more and will take less?” you know, to help the folks out. I think most town folks feel they have sunk a lot of money into education in Springfield over the past ten years and they are wondering what the investment has produced. And please no more excuses about poverty and lack of business in Springfield, inner city schools with the same issues and more kids produce better results than this district.
We live in a town that cannot find the answers right now, much of small town America has the same problem so I guess we are not alone if you find the comforting. Employers in the private sector are about to take a hit with Obamacare, they answer by cutting hours, employees and pay raises are not on the radar. On the flip side the public sector once again says we need more from the private sector tax base.
A few rules for the teachers replying. Please no remarks about how you pay the same percent of health care benefit rate as other in the state, don’t care. Please no remarks about teaching poor kids and their uncaring parents, don’t care. Please no remarks about not having books and pencils in the classroom or an aide, I do care about that, but tell it to the school board as they should be alterative ways to pay for those things. Do tell us how you can offer solution to this problem. I have no children in this system but I’m very concerned about going bankrupt to keep a failing school system in business.
P.S., I’ll give you a clue when looking for answers, it starts with people at all levels.
Nicely put Harry.
DeleteReal estate taxes cannot be raised again. A serious look at the budget needs to be made with the culling at the top. We need an accurate break out of all payroll costs for people not directly involved with students in the classroom, or involved directly in building maintenance. In other words supervisory staff, this will not be easy because a lot of central office budget is scattered around in the various building budgets. This has to be the primary target of the cuts. I am not exactly sure what we do about the students who are special ed students or students of parents who just don't care. Some of these are under State and Federal mandated programs that are to the extent they don't cover all the costs, eating us alive. There certainly needs to be a review of IEPs and the fluff cut out. In addition in times past the School absorbed costs that should have been the Town's costs because tax wise it made sense to put it in the School budget instead of the Town's, but given the upper limits the School is facing it is time to shove those costs back out of the School budget to the Town where they belong. The Town needs to put all the costs of providing police protection for students, etc. in the Town budget, and the School needs to start charging rental fees to the Town for all use of its facilities. After they have weaned the Town off the School budget and thinned out the central office, the School Board needs to start getting innovative by: 1) Putting on a major drive to identify and get signed up every conceivable family that qualifies for free or reduced lunch (as that impacts the amount of aid we receive); and 2) the school needs to get innovative and start considering creating or converting schools to magnet schools so that we can start raiding neighboring systems of their students; and 3) get our elected State Reps off their duffs and pushing the State to reimburse us for the construction costs we incurred with the schools.
DeleteA well thought out post. As far as magnet schools, isn't that what RVTC was suppose to be? I guess it is it's own district now. Should it be back in the SSD district?
DeleteFlopping monies from school to town budgets does not help the taxpayers nor does dreaming about Springfield Schools becoming magnets. Springfield Schools have a long long way to go to just becoming average schools again. The only pull on students is the Springfield Vortex that is sucking the students already enrolled down the drain.
Delete"A few rules for the teachers replying. Please no remarks about how you pay the same percent of health care benefit rate as other in the state, don’t care. Please no remarks about teaching poor kids and their uncaring parents, don’t care."
DeleteDon't care about your "rules" either. Or your 5 paragraphs of drivel. PS I'll give you a clue as well: you're an idiot.
Thank you Anonymous. I assume by your remarks you are one of our fine educational leaders. I may be an idiot, but I'm one of the idiots that pay your salary. So I guess I'm tired of being an idiot. By the way do you even know what the word idiot is (besides me)? Here's a clue, we have a school system full of them according to our teachers.
DeleteWell Harry, assuming you have the power to lay down "rules" for replies while discounting anyone else's points and you will get rude remarks in return. Also, making the assumption that this is anyone other than an Anonymous poster doesn't help your argument much either. Sounds a little paranoid...the school's principals prowl this website just to comment on your posts.
DeleteAhhh, okay. So you don't like rules? Of course you miss the point of the rule didn't you? Rude remarks, are you kidding me, have you read the blog over the years! Of course you get rude remarks, I'd be disappointed if I didn't get one. With all due respect I did use the word "assume" so you can't hold against me for guess whom Anonymous is. You must admit the time of you reply and what you responded too is a bit of tip off. Paranoid, sorry but I don't sleep with my eyes open. Noboby has been in the principals office more than I, nobody. In fact we were on a first name bases, he even named his first born after me. THE PRINCIPALS are on the prowl of this website, YIKES! Maybe they should be on the prowl of their halls and classrooms, or are they paranoid! Geeezzz, now I can't stop laughing.
DeleteI'm not Anon 9:59, I neither liked them nor disliked them, they didn't apply to me. Glad you got a chuckle. :)
DeleteTo my knowledge RVTC was never intended as a magnet school. It was originally intended as a Technical Center to be located within a complex that promoted a seamless web of education from 10th to the 14th grade. However, our Tech schools in Vermont are only half day schools. It has functioned like a magnet in some of its departments. Magnet schools are normally theme based and aim for overall excellence based around a predominant theme. The themes can vary from environmental, arts, music, literature, or technical. These have been very successful in inner city schools. Springfield shares a lot of the same problems as inner city schools, and I believe as far as improving Springfield's overall educational performance we are going to have to look at solutions which are working there. One of the things which they have discovered is that while good parents with stable quality employment tend to produce kids who are more interested in learning and better equipped to learn, where parents are over-worked with low pay and poor educational backgrounds the opposite tends to be true. As a result some schools have gone to 40 hour a week in class education with required internships that consume up to 60 hours of the student's time. Obviously, what is happening in these schools is that parent time is basically eliminated, which may sound counterintuitive, but for some kids this less time they spend hanging around home the better. These aren't programs for all of the kids in Springfield, but for a fairly decent segment they are probably needed. In addition, they need to start thinking about schools that demonstrate relevance between education and actual real life activity. Some of these programs would probably be cheaper than they way we are running things now. But we need to start experimenting...and these programs do attract parents. As much as Springfield Community School get badmouthed on this blog site -- they are still as good and in many cases superior to all the immediately surrounding districts. But our taxes have crept too high and we need some very careful precision cuts to the budget this time around.
DeleteThere are many cuts that can be made EASILY from the school budget. In publicly broadcast board meetings they added positions or partial positions back into the budget after we had voted and passed it. Slap in the face. That means we trusted them and they could have cut more all along.
DeleteNow they are approving paid sabbaticals for subpar teachers. What is wrong with them? In this economic climate, and with our town and history of expensive taxes and exorbitant school budget, be honest. Cut everything you can, while avoiding hurting student education (things like paid sabbaticals, teachers who don't even have full schedules, teachers who teach online classes, never enter the building, and get paid anyway, full time librarians at elementary level, assistant superintendents, extra secretaries). If you're going to spit in our face on SAPA, then you will pay the price. I don't trust you and I won't vote yes for your budget now.
Race to the bottom, Your Pants are on Fire...... I suggest you join Harry Byrd and teach for a day.
DeleteWhen Rod Tuollinen was principal at Riverside, he made a point of inviting citiizens to do so. Is any principal doing that now? He opened up a lot of eyes.
Kinda like having a colonoscopy and having the Doc tell you, "See, that wasn't so bad, was it"? Maybe for you, Doc but Springfield residents have been getting quite a few "colonoscopies" and the results are always the same.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding read Harry. You about nailed it. Time to cut the budget by eliminating non essential staff and services.
ReplyDeleteThin the herd of aids. If the little drooling, dyslexic, ADD, disruptive retards can't behave, stick them in a basement room with finger paints and a TV. With any luck, by their absence of any academics, trade skills, and ambition, they'll make fine guidance counselors some day.
Time to focus resources on those that want to learn. Just think what long term good could be accomplished if every student with the capacity to excel was identified and mentored to their full potential. With our current emphasis on special ed, these kids just coast thru assuming a life of mediocrity.
As said before, if money was the answer we'd have the finest school in Vermont.
If you don't look at the big picture, you will be trapped by the limits established by the small picture, which ensures a race to the bottom.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who understands the need for good education has to learn about what is impeding it. Simply saying "we can't afford to raise taxes," true as it might be (I disagree) does not address the underlying problem-- the skewed taxation system 94% of us live under. If we do not address that, we will continue to show how concerned we are and how potent we are as citizens by cutting more and more. Which is worthy of Third Worlders living in a banana republic.
As I point out elsewhere on this site, just one of the dodges used to transfer wealth to the wealthiest-- the so-called "marriage penalty" tax refund makes it impossible for $6 million of those annual refunds to be used to offset our schools' expenses-- and that's about 23% of the budget! So what do we do instead? We cut school funding even further.
What should we be doing? 1) Learn about what's needed in our school system. 2) Find out how much it costs. 3) Learn about the gross inequities in the state and federal income tax structures and change them to pay for what our school system needs.
If anybody wants to learn about the present system's avalanche of money towards the already wealthy, you know where to find me. I'll be more than happy to set up a training session.
What happens to the lottery money that is suppose to be for education? Everytime I hear the commercials stating that lottery money funds education, I keep thinking "WOW, (based on how many folks buy lotttery tickets) our schools must have all they need so why do taxes go up? Does anyone know where this money goes?
ReplyDeleteWhere does the money go? It's called winning the lottery, it funds itself. It's only a small percentage that goes towards education.
DeleteTOSS THE BS FLAG NOW!
ReplyDeleteWhen is a cut NOT a cut? When some SSD bureaucrat claims to be making a cut, that's when:
"Once we had fulfilled the board’s request, we then took a hard look at the fiscal reality for the town and made additional challenging cuts. Most of these “cuts” were eliminations of new requests we made in the needs budget. Therefore, most of the cuts listed in the article were from this needs budget as opposed to existing programs."
Come on jackwad, deal straight or don't deal at all. You didn't CUT. you just reduced your overinflated wishlist.
THIS IS WHY GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE TRUSTED ANYMORE - ESPECIALLY THEIR CLAIMS OF BEING "GOOD STEWARDS" OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS.
Time to break out the torches and pitch forks!
YEAH! Mean old scallywags on the school board - how dare they! LOL. STFU
DeleteThanks for exposing your ignorance for all to see. The criticism was in response to the administration's failings (assistant superintendent) as opposed to the school board. Your feeble powers of articulation (STFU) are purely laughable. With more fine citizens such as yourself, Springfield will continue unchallenged on its path to oblivion... Enjoy the ride, loser!
DeleteNeat that you reply to ignorant losers. Guess we speak the same language? You're just better at it. BLAMMO
DeleteRE: "Time to break out the torches and pitch forks!"
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
If nothing else, the recent election has deeply divided the makers from the takers. Time for the retired seniors being forced from their homes, and hard working home owners that fuel this rat hole to push back, and PUSH BACK HARD.
Want my money to line your pockets with pay, benefits and a pension I can only dream of? Then squander more of it on special interest projects that produce no results? Watch your back. This forum can ruin you. Just ask Perotti how his new job search is going.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteBaloney. Teachers post here all of the time. The town and school board actually react to many of the posts that surface here. Saying they don't read this forum is a canard. The fact remains when the benefits are included in a comparison between a teacher paid with public dollars to one that is in the private sector, the public teacher is overpaid by about 50 percent. It is ridiculous for tax payers to fund this disparity and it can be remedied easily by refusing to cave to the public employee union demands in all future negotiations.
DeleteOooohhh. A free forum - with the power to change a nation! If teachers post here all the time (and not fools just pretending to be them) - then shame on them for arguing with idiots - hard to tell the difference. BTW, at 12:45 everyday I hear this loud noise emanating from the Bridge Street area - heard it is the Fire Department - you sure it's not you whining? Or maybe it's the teacher union warning everyone that somebody posted another hilarious whiney post on here to laugh at.
DeleteThe answer is to leave this pathetic town and let it rot in its own talings. Continuing to pay taxes to these blood sucking vampires only perpetuates the madness and incompetence. Load up the truck, stick a for sale on the property, and head for better destinations. There are plenty of states and townships in the United States that are well managed and fairly (meaning minimally) taxed and they offer much higher quality of life (including far better schools) than the swamp Springfield has become. Springfield will not be fixed in our lifetimes and it will never return to its former respectability. The growing block of ultra-99 percenters in town will see to that!
DeleteBYE BYE. If you dare.
DeleteWhy would anybody value more income over well-educated children? Look at how much better a place Springfield was for industry than South Carolina, where the cowboy capitalists moved J&L, where it went belly-up in two years.
ReplyDeleteSpringfield had a very intensive (and certainly costly) program which could make a two-cow dairy farmer one of the best machinists in the world.
What's wrong with having an educational system that makes Springfield children the best-equipped in America to face adult life?
"What's wrong with having an educational system that makes Springfield children the best-equipped in America to face adult life?"
DeleteBecause most of the kids come from idiot families, much like the ones who whine on here all day, and don't want to even be in school - and the answer to that from the same whiners above is to throw them in the basement with finger paint. So...round and round and round and round and round and round. It's 2012, not 1953.
Re: "Springfield had a very intensive (and certainly costly) program which could make a two-cow dairy farmer one of the best machinists in the world."
DeleteIf that was so Chuck, why weren't you included in becoming one of them???
And could you be just a little more condescending in your description of "two-cow dairy farmer(s)"???
The fact is that you are neither and are simply an unaccomplished hack masquerading as a social worker of no acclaim.
Anonymous, you miss the point. I don't know how long you've lived in Vermont, but until the bulk tank law was passed back in the late '50's, there were 26 dairy farms in Springfield. My old Westview acquaintance, Del, did the milk can pickups for this area. He was picking up milk from farmers who had two or three cows and would have starved to death, except that they had been through the co-op program and gotten good jobs at the shop.
DeleteTwo points here: First, when Textron decided that yahoos in South Carolina could do just as well making optical comparators as the hicks in Springfield, they had no idea the disaster they were creating, because: Second, the co-op program was very, very intensive. Guys who owned two cows could get through it if they had the potential, but it was a minimum of five or six years of "slavery," as Harry Shepard Jr. told me.
When Textron's ace executives stereotyped Precision Valley's machinists as two-cow farmers (even though some of them were), they screwed the pooch. The division folded in two years after the move.
Chuck Gregory “Why would anybody value more income over well-educated children?”
ReplyDeleteIs that a question for the staff and administration of our school district? Or are you saying we should throw more dollars into the system that seems to be bleeding money? And don’t you think the better educated children will not one day want to use that education to make, well, more money? Or should that education only be based upon your views of the world?
We’ve gotten the point that you are a 99 percenter and that the world owes you something, what I don’t know but my guess is that you are making a living on my dime too. Last check and it was only this morning that I checked, this is still a free country and a business has a right to locate when and where is chooses. Are Springfield leaders not working “hard” to get business from other States or Countries to relocate in our area so the grand list will grown and the schools will get better and populated with kids that are teachable? What will happen to those areas a business moves from to benefit the good folks of Springfield? Do they have blogs like this in those towns to complain and call those businesses lousy bums for moving?
I get the point of Zach’s writing, we need more, will take less. But the bottom line is it’s still more, period. Every budget seems to be explained the same, we need more to cover contractual obligations. In the meantime less and less taxable income comes into Springfield, so who covers those obligations, we do. So maybe it’s time to see if we have a few too many contracts on the table to cover.
Money doesn’t get you a better education, you get yourself a better education. Sure money can provide more offerings but if the student isn’t being driven with a desire to learn then all we have is money wasted. We have staff writing here that the kids are poor with no desire to learn, which of course is their parents fault. To me that is an excuse for failure. A true leader changes and engages minds, I know because I had a teacher / friend like that. I was the first in my family to graduate high school, college and have a successful career. A teacher’s encouragement changed a young man.
I encourage the staff to stop whining about that they don’t have and start looking and working with that they do have, the students. And please no comments on how you can’t do it without the parents, yes you can. Just be firm and honest, something most kids don't have in their life these days.
Teach the sheep, then one day they will become the lion.
“An army of sheep led by a lion are more to be feared than an army of lions led by a sheep. – Chabrias”
Well put. And I think your presumption that CG is on the dole is probably accurate.
Deletewhoa, Harry used a quote! That must mean he is smart and knows what he is talking about, because I mean, c'mon the dude looked up a quote to use in the blog spot! He made his point and i can't say it enough, HE USED A QUOTE!!!! You're awesome Harry and by using a QUOTE all other bloggers know you are just wicked smart and we don't stand a chance #morequotes
DeleteThe intellectual content of the one short quote cited by Harry infinitely surpasses the typed diarrhea that you spew on this site.
DeleteHarry true money doesn't necessarily get you a good education, but lack of money either in the school system or amongst the parents of the students doesn't help either. Unfortunately economic development in the United States in the past which has become a form of corporate welfare was primarily devoted to shifting manufacturing from one location to another usually to find either lower employee benefit requirements, or to find lower employee wages. If you want real economic development, all of that in the United States is centered around research universities. Vermont, however, ranks near the bottom of the list in its support for post-secondary education and only has one research based university which is UVM and that is basically a third echelon school. There is some research going on at Middlebury, but other than a nationally ranked niche law school specializing in environmental policy, Vermont is pretty much a post-secondary wasteland. If you want real economic growth in Springfield you would have to earnestly seek to get some type of post-secodary institution into town with a graduate program -- all of the major well paying high growth sectors in the United States are clustered around such institutions.
DeleteHarry Byrd, at the very least you should teach a classroom for a day. It will open your eyes to the need for a different approach than the one you favor.
DeleteWe have a couple of options. We can cut, cut, cut and make do. This will result in a reinforcement of Springfield's tendency to race to the bottom, and the result will be a crappy town no employer short of a maquiladora will want to move into: Our children will be near-illiterate peasants grateful to work for pennies at a hazardous job with no benefits and no chance of advancement or a future.
Or, we can plan for what we want in education and work to get it, making Springfield the envy of New England. I would like to see our teachers make a shopping list of what they need, and then we can use that for the beginning point of the best educational system in the state. How do you feel about that?
Chuckie, really? Is that all you got? I would not want to spend “at least” one day in the classroom, I would want to spend a month. You must be a pretty smart guy that you can see all the problems in just eight hours with a elementary school class. And what did you see, we need to spend more money. Gee that is great, why are you not on the school board.
DeleteYou’re watching kids in the classroom and or where ever and decided the teachers are underpaid. Did you watch the teacher? Did you engage any of the kids, look them in the eyes and ask them any questions. Did you analyze these kids by how they were dressed, their hygiene, or body language? Just wondering what you base your opinion on.
Waste exist, period. Just because you have a teaching degree does mean you should live a lifetime on the dole. Without question there are more good teachers than poor, even in this district. In my successful business we do not keep non-producers long. Once proven they cannot get the job done, we suggest other work. Why should the teaching profession be any different. Or maybe a better question is why should the school system be overstaffed while waiting for some to retire.
Most people are not questioning the value of a good teacher, they’re questioning where the heck are the tax dollars going when results are so disappointing. Of course from what I read of your writings results are not important, the kids are a pain and make the teachers work harder, spend more money. What happens if that doesn’t work? I guess we would meet you at the bottom then.
Hearing alot of bashing of teachers and the school system, and defense of teachers -- but not hearing any actual plans for reducing the tax rate or improving the school sytem. It seems like attacking the schools because of the tax rate is somewhat counter-productive, the tax rate problem is due to the combination of a dwindling enrollment+stagnant to decreasing grandlist+increasing healthcare costs+increased percentage of poverty uneducated families as opposed to middle class families. So it seems like we should be trying to address those issues. Compared to the surrounding school districts, Springfield does an excellent job of providing education to middle class youth. It seems like we need some more innovative and inspired leadership with regards to the poor kids and for the high capacity kids with learning disabilities. Vermont bought into the full main-streaming concept which I suppose was better than the previous institutionalization programs despite its disasterous impact on school budgets. Unfortunately, while this may have been an upgrade for the no capacity and limited capacity disabled children, it has been a raw deal for the high capacity children with learning disabilities who need special schools to deal with their autism, ADD and other disabilities which are surmountable. Perhaps what we should be looking for is a Charter School to work with high capacity children with learning disabilities. It is known that the existence of such programs actually lures middle-class and upper middle-class families into a district. That is not occurring now because the system is broken with respect to high capacity disabled children. That wouldn't help with the dwindling enrollment of the public schools, but it would allow the public schools to concentrate on what they do best namely educating the traditional students and babysitting the no or limited capacity disabled students. The Selectboard has to assume more responsibility for increasing the Grand List, unfortunately other than supporting the bio-mass plant which will be a substantial boost to the grandlist it has been populated primarily by uninspiring conservatives who spend their time chasing paperclips and kowtowing to a domineering board chairman. We need a board which is actin oriented and not as dependent on not for profits.
DeleteI have children in the schools here and I think they have wonderful teachers... Amazing in fact. We have one that contacts us regularly about all the things they are doing in class. They read high level literature, they have rigorous and advanced expectations at the high school. Look at the Green Horn and Green Horn Live - Those are excellent examples of what our students can do and how much better they can do it. We have great programs like that, that are better than any in New England. My child also has a wonderful Russian Teacher. I was told that a UVM professor said that the students coming our of her program were more advanced than most other students at the University.
DeleteI know not all of the teachers are great. There are some very poor teachers, that don't connect with the students. But the problem doesn't seem to be the teachers, and might just be the administration.
Harry Byrd, until you've walked the walk, you can't talk the talk. One half-day session with 28 fourth-graders showed me that I did not possess what it takes to be a classroom teacher. Sixty two-and-a-half hour sessions involving anywhere from eight to fourteen kids ranging from six to 12 exposed me to the broad spectrum of age-based developments which call for extremely sensitive reading of each individual child's style of learning and attention span.
DeleteIf you don't want quality in the classroom, keep arguing for cuts to the school budget. Do you know who teaches the mandatory religion classes in the British school system? Because the pay is so lousy, it's the ATHEISTS, who are more than willing to peddle their message and get half-pay for it.
If there are teachers who are still in place even though they have burned out, we have to take a look at the system which evaluates them. As protected as I was in my job, three bad evaluations, and I was out. One of the worst failings of the American public school system is in not having teachers evaluate their peers. Instead, they are evaluated by administrators. And even when a bad teacher leaves, we cannot afford to have the remaining teachers take up the slack. We need to have sufficient teachers for the load of students-- and the load is not determined by body count, but by individual potential. Some students can be fast tracked, some can be taught en masse, some need to be shown a better life is possible, and all need to learn in school that community means living with the diversity their classmates display.
Now, how are the results so disappointing to you?
Alpin Jack, good points there, but I think you're unlikely to get a charter school that will deal with the highest-risk students. Charter schools for the most part are like UPS-- they skim the best and if by mistake they get a dumbo, they toss him out of the boat and sail on.
DeleteAnonymous with the great school experience-- I am so glad to hear that! It represents perhaps a change for the better since the 70's and 80's. I'll bet you are active in the PTO; it's the best way for parents to get good results in their kids' schools.
CG actually there are private schools which concentrate on high capacity learning disabled children. In other words children with learning disabilities that can be surmounted, which does not include children whose capacity is so limited that even overcoming some of their disabilities basically leaves them still severely retarded or vegetables. These children are not given what they need in the mainstream programs. Their parents who cross the economic strata will move to the school district if it has a school that really can deal with the issue. I have heard of parents leaving the Windsor School District in order to get into the Lebanon School District for that reason. Ideally it would be best to do this with a magnet school, but I am afraid such a school would just get swamped with the vegetables.
DeleteThank you, Alpin Jack.
DeleteChuckie, here’s where you miss the point, nobody is arguing against quality in the classroom, at least I have not seen it on this blog. Taxpayers are saying it appears that money gets wasted and that, unlike what Zach says, they are not good stewards with our money. Does one not have the right to question that?
DeleteAs far as dealing with the students, I do and have, we hire them. Some even graduated. Want to hear something even crazier, I’ve never had to fire one! Some moved on to better employment, some went back to school. Crazy isn’t it? My staff and I treat each person, as a person. No one program fits all, we tell them what is expected of them, place them in situations that they can succeed and follow-up regularly. We don’t have one size fits all program, we have a people program. I don’t think kids can always get that in the classroom and I don’t blame the teachers for that, I blame a failing system.
I don’t know what you not having the skill to be a classroom teacher has with investing more money in the school, maybe you can explain that. Alpin Jack has hit some decent topics and a agree with some of his writings, but I have yet to see where he is saying spend more money. Alpin seems to be looking for answers to better educate. For me I would stress the need to interact and not just from eight am to three pm.
It’s hard to believe you received three bad job reviews which cost you a position. I hope it wasn’t for overspending.
I am still waiting to see your solutions to the tax rate problem and improving the schools. I would like to see the ideas for improving the system spelled out. What I see here is alot of people wanting to cut spending, well fine, but exactly what do you intend to cut. Keep in mind that the way we entice people to teach rather than do something else -- at least on the financial side -- is good benefits. Yet, healthcare costs keep going up. In addition, we have to keep in mind that what went into a school budget when we were kids is vastly different what is now mandated. Schools are not just teaching establishments, they are also rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, etc.
DeleteHarry Byrd, unless you have a workforce of hundreds, the students you hire are not wholly representative of the students who go through the system. You are looking at the system through the lens of the students you employ, which gives you a bias toward believing everything is good enough that no more money needs be invested in education. Not smart!
DeleteUntil a person understands how complex a teacher's job is, he will always think it's no more difficult than his own; it's a human reaction. I believe you would have a much better grasp of a teacher's job if you actually taught; that was Rod Tuollenen's philosophy.
Alpin Jack, the immediate solution to the tax rate problem is to increase the tax. This is an investment in our kids' education.
The next closest solution is to lift the cap on second homes. I have been told that when Act 60 was passed, second homes were taxed at a dollar amount which was higher than the rate on first homes. With increased valuation of homes and raises in the tax rate, "primary homeowners" now pay more than owners of second homes.
The long-range solution is to re-do the national tax structure so the 6% who earn 60% of the income and pay an average rate of 17% (Rmoney did 14%, by the way) pay for the education of the Americans who give them good roads, good hospitals, safe neighborhoods and make them rich.
Chuck, so unless you work in the field a period of time you cannot grasp the full "feel" for the task at hand. The day-to-day grind, the unexpected daily surprised and the need to present a solid program that keeps the kids coming back, is that what you need to experience to get the full effect of what a teacher does?
DeleteThen it sounds like you would agree that every 99 percenter should jump into a business and see what that is like before they stick their hand out for money and complain about greed. Thankfully you are not among those are you Chuck.
By the way, the kids we end up hiring are mainly the drop outs. Want to find out what they are not learning in school, have them fillout a job aplication some time.
re: "Want to find out what they are not learning in school, have them fill out a job application some time."
DeleteAMEN TO THAT!!!!!!
As an employer that has attempted to hire young people within the community, I can personally bear witness that fundamental, primary education skills are atrocious.
My Grandmother that was born in 1896, received an 8th grade education in a one room school house in Londonderry. She had far better hand writing, English, grammer and math skills then the average SHS graduate.
Something is horribly lacking within the Springfield school system and it sure as hell isn't money!
Chuck believes that pouring more tax payer money into a failed system will somehow fix it. Replacing the incompetent administration and those inept teachers who are helping to destroy it is the only solution. That does not require more money. It just requires the willpower to fix it while having to listen to the crying and excuses of the failure's creators and their defenders as they are removed from control.
DeleteWell Anon 9:15, you sound like a brave hero. Why don't you go to the board meetings act like "Dirty Harry" and fix things for everyone? I'd like options beyond our brave blog heroes expounding on how inept everyone else is and how we should be able to fund the schools for free. If this is so easy, why haven't you come right on down and fixed it? I don't want my taxes to go up anymore than anyone else does, but these posts make the school people look like Einstein. They at least have some sort of plan beyond how everyone else is an idiot and schools should be free to run.
DeleteThat "plan" that the clowns running things is to maintain the status quo of a failed system while reaping the financial rewards for themselves and the unions. There has been NO real attempt to fix the broken school system for years and years and years. Do you think spending more money will actually fix it without changing it first?
DeleteAnon 10:09, we get it...it's broke, broke, broke. Fine. Why should I replace my current batch of known "idiots" for a new batch of unknown "idiots" without a real plan for fixing things? I don't see anything in the budget for paying our current people that is any different from all the other schools in Vermont. So we get rid of one batch of money grubbers for a new batch of money grubbers from other schools? That's the brave new plan? Sorry, that is nothing more than wishing. Come up with real figures, who to fire, who to hire and who is going to do the work of the people that don't get replaced and I might buy into it. Otherwise all of this is just someone raging against the system. I want a leader to lower our taxes not some crank that thinks shouting about how broke it all is will result in getting it all fixed.
DeleteWith your attitude it can never be fixed. There are plenty of school districts that work hard at improving. Springfield is not one of them. No one in charge has done anything meaningful to fix the declining school system. Instead most time is spent blaming "demographics' and the parents as excuses for failure.
DeleteAgain...its the school system that is broken. Fine.
DeleteWhat school systems are working harder than Springfield's at improving? I want specifics since you have obviously done the research. I want to know so I can look at what they are doing differently. I'll point these out to our School Board.
What specifically should be done to fix the "declining school system"? Short of firing all the clowns that is?
Who exactly at the school has blamed demographics and parents? Is that really the problem? Give me a name and I can actually ask them some questions about it (I can work email, imagine).
My attitude comes from wanting to actually see some facts and real ideas. I want action. It's my attitude that can make a difference and actually might get things fixed. Your attitude of whining on a blog site about the clowns, idiots, and whatever other name you come up with about vague problems and it being broke won't fix my taxes.
Read the board minutes Anon 1:29 and form your own opinions. Look at what they are doing with the money, how they shift it around, add positions (with what money?) after July 1st? If they have money to add stuff and shift around, then they have extra money that should have been cut in the first place. Look at class numbers, teacher's schedules. How many teachers are not teaching full schedules? How many full time teachers spend most of their day "planning" or at their leisure. It doesn't mean they aren't doing good things: Maybe they are joining committees (or extra-curricular stuff that actually pays them a stipend on top of salary) or volunteering to do more in their free time - but that's it... Free time means we can cut teachers, and cut the budget. Done.
DeleteI for one want the focus of "need" to shift from $$ to communication. As I enter the last quarter of my kids' grade school education, I can't tell you how frustrated I have become with the lack of communication out of the schools in our town. Some are better than others, but there needs to be a culture shift from within. I'd be far more willing to contribute extra money if I felt it was going to fix things. But unfortunately, I don't feel that the culture is one of respect and full attention for all students. Involvement with the schools results in conversations that fall on deaf ears. I believe my kids will succeed despite it, but for future generations, let's push for teachers who care about each individual regardless of what their family circumstances or the child potential is. I don't want to hear how hard their job is...if you don't like it, change careers! My job isn't easy either. Do you think dealing with clients who have no money to pay for my services is easy? But I do it for a love of what I do. Don't get me wrong, there are many teachers in our district who have the right attitude and make the students' lives better. But there are some who just should not be teaching.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, when my kid was going through the system, I noticed that as he advanced, the happy-grams declined and the nasty-grams increased. I got the feeling that in the older grades the teachers were burned out or burning out. There were a very few who made a big difference for him. I don't know what the situation is like now, and I don't know if anyone is dealing with it.
DeleteI read that they are paying for teachers that aren't needed, or for paid sabbaticals and such... As long as they don't lose the good ones, means they need to cut some teachers at the upper level. The administration has been irresponsible.
DeleteAnonymous, can you cite reports stating which teachers aren't needed? As for sabbaticals, I have never met a Springfield teacher who got a sabbatical he or she didn't richly deserve. Considering that almost no non-union worker has been able to keep the same job for ten years or has gotten raises sufficient to keep him/her ahead of inflation for the last twenty years, EVERY worker should be entitled to one!!!!
Delete
Delete Sabbatical Request from Jennifer Dodge
The superintendent, teacher’s union representative and Jeanice met with Jen Dodge who requested a sabbatical for the school year 2013 to 2014 in order to write a book. Part of the plan to write a book is the inclusion of the high school’s reading standards for informational text and writing
standards for 9 to 12 grades.
After consideration it was agreed to recommend approval of the request as stated.
She's writing a book about Paul McCartney. It has nothing to do with teaching. She will profit from it being published, and paid by our district as she writes it?
Assistant Superintendent: Expressed concern that we have not been able to fill the half-time Power School position and is looking for ideas on what we can do with the situation. (Not filled yet? Not needed obviously... Cut it).
DeleteHey, if someone puts in over 20 years, and we weren't such a poor town with such high taxes, we can start giving out paid sabbaticals. It just shows that the district has budget money to cut.
DeleteCG: Did you see that class offerings with enrollment numbers listed online and then see how many teachers are in each department? Do the math.
DeleteTeachers are not production line workers, anonymous. Children are not lumps of raw material.
DeleteHow much do you want your child educated? How willing are you to do unto others as you would have them do unto you?
Re: Jennifer Dodge: What did she do that she should NOT deserve a sabbatical?
DeleteGood workers in any field deserve special rewards. That most good workers are not getting them is no reason for others to be denied; rather, it is a reason for those other workers to organize and claim their rights to decent pay, decent working conditions and appropriate rewards.
Instead, too many people follow like lemmings in the race to the bottom.
Exactly what we need!
DeleteHERE YE ALL SSD TEACHERS! PLEASE REQUEST PAID SABBATICALS IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE YOU ALL DESERVE THEM! THE TOWN WILL PAY 3/4 OF YOUR SALARY AND YOUR FULL BENEFITS WHILE YOU TRAVEL AND WRITE A BOOK! WE WILL THEN ALSO PAY A FULL TIME TEACHER WITH FULL TIME BENEFITS TO COVER FOR YOU WHILE YOU TRAVEL AND WRITE AND RELAX. YOU DESERVE IT! TAKE IT.
Yes, you deserve it and don't worry, we (the taxpayers) will be paying for at least a salary and a half ($25,000-$30,000 for the teacher on Sabbatical with her Master's and experience in district, and AT LEAST $35,000 for an entry level, no Master's Degree, straight out of college teacher) AND full benefits for BOTH people, all to fill one position.
Can this town afford to pay $90,000 for a total of one actual full time teacher, teaching 3 classes a day? That's what the students will be getting. How does a sabbatical help the students or our school and our town's financial woes and our trust in the school board to make fiscally responsible and intelligent decisions?
This isn't a personal attack on one teacher, it's just the reality of our town and our schools at this point. If every teacher felt entitled to a sabbatical what in the jackwagon would they do?
Chuck says we must spend more money to fix the broken system because we must according to Chuck and those running this failed town. We are not allowed to remove the problems(firing the incompetent jerks in control). Logic is not allowed here. Spend away, tax away, fade away!
DeleteHooray for burning our money in the parking lot.
Deletei know what youre talking about. union street was full of good teachers. park street not so much so. riverside was pretty bad. their was a group that was very physical with students. not to mention thats where you were spilt up. the chosen went to 7/8 the rest well you know. the high school had alot of teachers who would reach out to you. earl boudette,rockio,bob paul,larry carbonetti,ect. they enjoyed the challenge and felt rewarded for their effort.
ReplyDeleteCG the nitwit strikes again!
ReplyDeleteFirst, at 7:09 he chides Harry Byrd and writes that "...at the very least you should teach a classroom for a day. It will open your eyes to the need for a different approach than the one you favor." Minutes later at 7:22 he writes about the school system "I don't know what the situation is like now, and I don't know if anyone is dealing with it.
What a friggin' gas bag! Crawl back under your rock CG...
Sorry, anonymous, but I did three hours' volunteer stint in a classroom (more than enough for my taste!) and sixty evenings with bunches of six- to twelve-year olds of no particular creed or social status, and I have a good idea of what Springfield teachers face-- and they're worth not only every penny of what they get, but also of a lot more respect for their profession than they've ever gotten.
DeleteWhat's your experience?
Chuckie..If the Springfield Schools District were responsible they would have screened you out from attending or being near a school with children. From your posts you exhibit all of the traits of someone skirting with lunacy or worse. Maybe you should attend prison next and give us your insights about how everything there is going.
DeleteAs a matter of fact, anonymous, I have volunteered in the prison. It reminded me a lot of high school in the Fifties and Sixties.
DeleteCould you explain how you deduce from my posts that I'm "skirting with lunacy or worse"? Or is that just flinging poo?
Perhaps it is because your posts reflect a distorted perception of reality and a complete lack of common sense?
DeleteYou'll have to be more specific, anonymous. How do they reflect a "distorted perception of reality" or a "complete lack of common sense"?
DeleteCG is only doing what most Springfielders do. He spends his time trying to ensnare people into the swirling Springfield Vortex while not realizing that , he too, is also trapped into circling and being eventually flushed into the Twilght Zone from which there is no return.
ReplyDeleteInteresting concept, anonymous! Could you enlarge on it? What is Springfield's Twilight Zone?
DeleteThe rest is silence.....
DeleteSO WHAT IS NEXT ???
ReplyDeleteA TEACHER STUDENT RELATIONSHIP.....
Why?
DeleteIt doesn't matter if the vote passes or not, if it does, the schools will be happy if it doesn't they will make us vote and vote again until it does.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone looked at the number of children from Springfield enrolled in private schools in our area? Why are families choosing sending their children to more costly private schools in addition to paying taxes in Springfield?
ReplyDeleteAre the numbers astronomically high?
Private schools are an East Coast tradition amongst the upper class, in the South they are a racist tradition, and in the Midwest they tend to be either a Fundamentalist Christian tradition or basically a military reform school for behavioral problems. Not necessarily indicative of anything. Springfield does a good job of educating overachieving bright children and taking care of low capacity disabled children -- its the children in between that tend to not do so well. The kind that have to have teenage jobs to help support their families and as a result tend to fumble job applications. Unfortunately, the bright overachievers tend to go away to college and never come back, or not come back for a few years. Springfield's most important export is her best and brightest students of which there are many. If we could bring a real college to town, we probably wouldn't be able to keep them from going away to college -- but we might create an atmosphere where more of them returned sooner. We are, however, seeing a trickle of these former students coming back to the area -- unfortunately too many of them are locating in Weathersfield, not because of the schools, but because of gang/drug situation and neglect of the Selectboard.
DeleteWe don't have a high number this year. It is never astronomically high, at least at the high school level. We do have very reputable, and rigorous programs that keep families of advanced students happy... However those are depleting. American Studies, the shining gem of an honors experience that was always threatened to be cut just to get the budget passed, is not the same. My friend's daughter is in it now, and it is nothing like the class I took when I was in high school, or what my own older children took more recently. She is not happy with it and neither is her daughter. It's just a fluff, easy class. Fun? Sure! Challenging and honors level? Nope. That's how we lose advanced students to private schools.
DeleteI know there is at least one excellent Math teacher, Dean?, whom students really respect. The Arts Academy is reputable, although Photography was cut and it seems like it will take more cuts. The programs that make the school special and better are not being supported, from what I can see.
Harry Byrd: there are those who can intellectually understand a field and there are those who need to experience it in order to understand it. Your previous comments indicate that both you and I are in the latter group, which is why I recommend that you, as I did, teach for a day. I think you would find it as elucidating to your own mindset as it was to mine.
ReplyDeleteI am sure your employees are grateful for being hired by you even though they might be school failures; I gather that they exercise the curiosity and display the ingenuity necessary to handle the unexpected bumps that come up in their tasks. Since 85% of training for almost all jobs happens on the job, it indicates the suitability of your hires for the sort of work you need done. And not all school failures are due to low intelligence, etc.; there are those who drop out because the education offered is inadequate for their level of intelligence-- Bill Gates and Matt Damon are but two examples. Still, as I previously pointed out, your employees are a subset of the school population, and you should be mindful of seeing the school through that particular lens.
Finally, you should really understand the distribution of income in America before parroting the Federalist Society and Ayn Rand about the 99% who "stick their hand out for money and complain about greed." I suggest you check out the Springfield Vermont Democratic Committee website
(http://www.facebook.com/SpringfieldVermontDemocrats?skip_nax_wizard=true)
for the cartoon in which Obama asks the Cleaver family to support his agenda, and they can't imagine, among other things, a CEO making 300-400 times what Ward makes.
There is a much larger picture of which you apparently are unaware.
As economist Brad DeLong said about professor Neal Henderson of the law school at the University of Chicago (who complained that he couldn’t afford the loss of the Bush tax cuts for his half-million-dollar income):
“Of the 100 people richer than he is, fully ten have more than four times his income. And he knows of one person with 20 times his income. He knows who the really rich are, and they have ten times his income: They have not $450,000 a year. They have $4.5 million a year.
“And, to him, they are in a different world.
“And so he is sad. He and his wife deserve to be successful. And he knows people who are successful. But he is not one of them--widening income inequality over the past generation has excluded him from the rich who truly have money.
“And this makes him sad. And angry. But, curiously enough, not angry at the senior law firm partners who extract surplus value from their associates and their clients, or angry at the financiers, but angry at... Barack Obama, who dares to suggest that the U.S. government's funding gap should be closed partly by taxing him, and angry at the great hordes of the unwashed who will receive the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security payments that the government will make over the next several generations.”
Your remarks about " a hand out" indicate that you are a tool, however unwitting, of people like Federalist Society member Professor Neal Henderson. And it affects how you feel about the school budget.
Chuck, I hear what you are saying. I happen to agree with a lot of it although I don’t identify with the whole Occupy or 99% movement. I prefer to think of myself as a Middle American.
DeleteI don’t believe in trickle-down economics. It worked in the early 80s before companies got the bright idea that there was lots of cheap labor in other countries. Today money trickles right on out to other countries. That is just where the jobs in Springfield went, and no those same jobs are not coming back. Ever.
I believe that too many people buy into the myth that they too will one day be very rich, and they won’t want to pay high taxes. My wife and I are well off, having not yet broken the 90K mark. We paid 22% in taxes in 2011. Romney made 13.7 Million and paid 14.1% in taxes. I missed the $20K we paid in way more than Romney missed the 2 million he paid in. The plain fact is the chances of any of us earning more than a $200K a year are slim to none. Why should we worry about the rich getting richer while the middle class carries a higher burden?
Don’t get me wrong, I also think things at the other end of the spectrum need to change. Too many are sucking off of welfare placing a burden on those that do work. I know some young people that hardly work. They have few part-time jobs for a few months at a time during the year. They have two kids. They get all kinds of aid. They mentioned the other day about signing their kids up for gifts for tots or some other charity for Christmas. It always kills me that in February they get a big check from the government in the form of a tax rebate for several thousand dollars that they never paid in. Then it’s Christmas for the “adults”, with new TVs, and electronics and stuff.
The plain fact is, the system is screwed up. I want to pay less income, state and sales taxes. That stuff irks me way more than local taxes. At least that stays in town.
I agree, but half been witnessing an apparent lack of innovation the last several school boards -- that may be due to the Superintendent, but its my experience that firing a Superintendent does not necessarily result in an improvement when he or she is replaced.
DeleteIsn't the current Superintendent on his way out at the end of the school year?
DeleteIt seems to be the problems are way beyond the school system, it just happens to have the biggest target painted on it.
They will see they couldn't just pick a scapegoat and hope no one notices that the problem wasn't Dr. Perotti, but lots of other things.
DeleteAnonymouse: Agreed. WE are in the same position, same income bracket. We are feeling the high income and state tax burden. I hope it is relieved to some extent in the near future.
DeleteAnonymous at 11/26 said: "pouring more tax payer money into a failed system will somehow fix it."
ReplyDeleteJust how is it a failed system, Anonymous?
I keep hearing the "failed system" comment, but I am not hearing any proposed solutions. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that our real estate taxes are too high. I have not come to the conclusion that our school system is failing, but I do believe that some changes are in order to reduce real estate taxes. I fault the Selectboard as much as the School system because they have not aggressively sought to grow the grandlist with the exception of the biomass plant. They spend too much time chasing paperclips, and the Board Chairman is oppressive in his attempts to squelch the other board members from expressing their opinions or tendering motions. We elected five Selectboard members and we are entitled to hear from all of them and know their positions -- that requires more motions and more up and down public votes. The problem is that our more innovative and progressive citizens who decide to take the plunge into local politics tend to run for the school board and abandon the Selectboard to conservatives who kind of grope around in a fog instead of pushing to get things done and buildings occupied.
DeleteChuck. You don't realize the Springfield School District is one of the worse school systems in the state? That is what a failed system means. Please refrain from posting anymore nonsense from the Twilight Zone.
DeleteThat's not true.
DeleteYa... It is true.
DeleteNo... See below...
DeleteWhat specifically are you looking at for data to make the statement that "Springfield School District is one of the worse school systems in the state"?
ReplyDelete