Did They or Didn’t They?
The two largest school districts in the area, Keene and Monadnock, announced last week that they were reducing or “pink slipping” staff. New Hampshire law states that staff, teachers and paraprofessionals, must be notified of this change in their employment for the next school year on or before April 15th of the current school year. If this notification is not received then the school district must issue contracts for the next year to these employees. In some cases the district will opt to rehire certain staff that has been pink slipped.
Monadnock chose to “pink slip” forty paraprofessionals. They did this as the district is experiencing declining enrollment and they do not need this entire staff. Keene on the other hand chose to “pink slip” thirty-eight teachers that did not have tenure. Tenure in New Hampshire is received after a teacher has taught in a district for three consecutive years. Keene’s reason for “pink slipping” this staff was the state of New Hampshire informed the district that they had not collected enough funds for the state’s retirement fund. Keene needs to collect this additional money and deposit it immediately into the state’s account to satisfy the deficiency balance. The state also told the district that this money cannot be part of this year’s school budget. The Keene district needs to “RIF” or “pink slip” these teachers to cover this money.
This prompts the informer to ask this question, “How did the Winchester school district avoid this issue of “pink slipping?” One could conclude the following through deductive reasoning:
- The Winchester School district has a great business manager
- The Winchester School district got lucky
- The Winchester School district had a premonition that the state would be short of money and this is why the district added the funds back into the budget
The informer remembers Mr. Whippie telling those at the school meeting that if “we don’t need this extra money we won’t use it”. One can only think that the board had prior knowledge of the state being short of retirement funds and lacked the courage to tell the voters the real reason that they needed this money. This extra money in our school budget ensures that the teachers and paraprofessionals in Winchester would not receive “pink slips”. The informer understands that the voters in Winchester have the knowledge to vote for money that is necessary to support the school. The informer also understands that if this is the case then the school budget should drop at least $1.1 million next year.
15 comments:
After reading how poorly our students are doing and that this has been an ongoing problem for more then 4 years, I think it is appalling that these teachers got together to vote themselves raises claiming they were doing it for the children, when all along it was to keep their cushy jobs despite failing the kids they claim to care so much about.
I don't understand this whole deal, but it looks like the SAU, stiffed both the teachers and the school board, which in turn stiffed the taxpayers. I think the selectmen and the budget committee may not be too nice to the SAU this year. Hope someone with more info will post.
You need to spend a LOT of time looking into this and the actions of the new SAU folks and Dr. C. It is a sad day in this area that Winchester and Hinsdale left the SAU. From what I hear from townspeople our school systems will be in sad shape and our kids are going to lose big time.
Heard through the grapevine that every teacher received a pink slip from Dr. C on Friday. Is this true? Including the Principal? It would be wonderful to hear that someone gave Dr. C one too! With the cushy salary he gave himself, he should be the first to go.
The teachers can't complain too much. They were warned by the Select and the budget committee. Yet they went ahead and voted for the increase in budget and raises.
They were told by Sherman that if no one could pay their property taxes, no one was going to get paid. You have to be able to collect the money to give out the money. It fell on deaf ears.
We might agree that they deserve a raise. Everyone deserves a raise, but if the money is not there...you must wait. They will join the ranks of us that can't afford the steep property taxes -without jobs or pay increases and the price of commodities doubling, we have been hurting for several years now!
They weighed the option of a raise vs job security.
That 38 billion dollar cut that just went into law via Washington, is bound to have some impact here. Of course then there are the cuts that are comming via the NH legislature too. Hello out there???????? I hope that the voters get it together next spring.
Why is everyone so negative towards the teachers? They went to school for 4 years and up to receive degrees. Certainly do not get paid cushy pay checks and are 10,000's in debt with school loans which they will need to be paying for the next 25 years. Teachers are only paid for the 9 months they work. They are not getting any raises and in fact they will get paid less because health care prices are soaring. They also have families too they are trying to support and they pay the same taxes as all the other property owners in town. Why knock the profession and wish them to be jobless?
Perhaps it's because every time a report on "their" performance comes out based on how well our students are doing, Winchester students are failing the grade. In the article in the Keene Sentinel last week, this has been happening for the past four years. These teachers claim these students are to blame for their inattentiveness or failure to study properly, to me that is just an excuse for incompetence. How many of Winchester's teachers are state certified and how many don't make the grade? These are the questions that should be brought up at school meetings so we can get to the route of the problem and do something about this sorry situation instead of handing out more money and staying with the status quo of blaming our kids when they can't pass a simple skills test. Though this this is a statewide problem, we should get some answers here and stop handing out money some don't deserve to get.
All Winchester's teachers have at minimum a Bachelor's (4 years of college)or Master's Degree (4 years of college plus 2 or more years of graduate school). All are state certified and also get recertified through the state every three years.
Do you actually believe everything written in the Keene Sentinel? It is not just a state problem, it is a problem across the whole United States.
The success of all schools is based on one test. If our intelligence or prediction for success in the future was only based on one assessment we would all be in sorry shape.
I think it is pretty amazing if teachers can get through four years of college and only come out with $10,000 in school loans. Maybe thirty years ago, but not today.
Before you put all the blame on the teachers perhaps you should take a look at the family life. If a teacher has to be a parent along with an educator choices have to be made. These people are only human.
Take a look at the town report and you will see that out of 42 staff only 15 have advanced degrees. We have 7 special educators, one social worker and a coordinator of special education. My question to the teacher would be "With all of this special ed help how can our children be this far behind?" I forgot to mention that we have 48 paras. You tell me why our children are not passing the tests.
Perhaps it is time to adopt the philosophy of other states-eliminate tenure and teachers will earn their keep. I do not have the answer but I sure as heck would ask the principal what he is going to do about this.
I agree that it is unacceptable to condone the scores that the Winchester school is showing. Having said that , I will also say that the federal and state goverments need to share equal blame with the teachers. Fed and state regs combined with a national unionist approach to education, has left the door open to less than stellar performances by the schools. Home schoolers by contrast are scoring far better at no cost to the taxpayers. When the NEA stops pumping cash into the politicians campaign re-election funds, perhaps excellence will reign once more. Entitlements vs real education money leaves the taxpayer out in the cold.
Talking about the school, they hire a private Co. to plow snow, salt and sand. Most towns have hwy take care of that. Today a private Co. did the sweeping and they did it with one man and one machine. Our town did the spring sweeping with three men and three machines. maybe its time for the town to use private Companies instead of replacing the hwy guys as they retire.
Where are my posts from this morning? This site seems to pick and choose what they post. Very shady!
Stop blaming the teachers and government. I am sick of this day in age when nobody takes responsibility for their on problems. Parents not bieng able to control their children or making sur ethe kids are studying and doing good in school by keeping track of whatg they are doing. Sounds to me like a lack of parenting. Its timepeople take responsibility and start getting involved in their childrens education.
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