Maybe the lay-offs were a good thing??? It's almost like we were spending over the budget and now we need to cut back. We will get out of this deficit so much faster without these fluff positions. Actually, scratch that, also not-fluff positions. Some teachers in our school system do deserve to be fired.
“Why is the district closing schools? Firing teachers and paras and staff? Shuttering programs? Budget shortfalls, fiscal crises, and sky-is-falling updates from the board, superintendent, and business office.
But how do we know what’s really going on? There are always hidden stories and possibilities buried in the numbers. From debt service to reserve funds to pension contributions, the truth about the money is there in public documents but the public rarely gets an opportunity to figure out what it all means.
That’s what this training is all about: how to find and interpret the documents communities, movements, and unions need to understand the real financial situation of their schools and craft campaigns to change those situations”
First, I'm so sorry you are going through this at all. I'm more sorry you are going through it after the school year is already here. I'm no longer a NC resident so don't know the background that got WSF here, but know from work elsewhere that, as you said, the underlying cause is never an overnight thing.
Can I ask a clarifying question? From the news story, it sounds like roughly half or more of the positions reduced were in central departments. Is your sense that isn't accurate? That it doesn't mean much in the context of the school based cuts?
Totally understand if you don't want to spend more time thinking about it to satisfy another's curiousity.
At Central, they shuffled the cups, consolidated. Positions were "reduced," but the head count stayed roughly the same. WE don't have a director of the science division, for example, but they're still there, because we don't have that position anymore. They're a Program Director under another director (math). As those of us in the trenches have taken to saying, "The Executive Cabinet must be preserved at all costs!"
According to the state formula (which they use as our funding base), we were overstaffed in many areas - APs in buildings, EC workers and assistants, etc. In order to make the numbers work and make expenditures match the income, this is the route they chose. There were limited other options, but those went this way. The thing is, this district has worked for nearly a decade at the "higher than state allotment" of ECs and APs. For one crowd, that's a target to cut, but for those of us with muddy boots and parents, that's how the schools in the district have operated for many families' worth of kids to go through.
Services will not be maintained. We're going to have the stuffing sued out of us by parents of EC kids. And they know their laws. Not to mention schools that will spiral into worse discipline problems and violence, since APs are being cut.
We have a foolish board member (TBF, they're not the only one) who asks nearly at every meeting, "What can we do to stop from losing so much money to charter schools?" (voucher money comes from the state to the district, and then we pay the charter schools...it's because NC GOP are dicks, and want to make us feel that), and every time they say that in a meeting, I'm like, "motherfucker, have you not been awake for what y'all have been doing for the past eight years?"
The call is coming from inside the fucking house.
If I ran marketing at a charter or private school, I would only be using video clips of board meetings where they ask questions, utterly dumbfounded about how this happened, along with clips of all the services we're cutting. Our district has become a commercial for charter and private schools.
And now, since this has settled, those of us who are safe (?) are saying the quiet stuff out loud - they're going to come back to cut again, and this next time, cuts will be deeper be default, because there's nothing left on the surface. But the Executive Cabinet must be preserved at all costs!
And also, the people making the decisions have zero skin in the game. I only wish we were all on the same metaphorical island and we could burn their boats, so there's no escape until we solve this, and dire consequences for them if they screw it up. But there aren't. Our interim is a carbetbagger who will be off to the statecoach depot with her bag stuffed full of money (she's making about 4-5x average teacher salary with a travel allowance). All the board members will run again, claiming how THEY were the ones who saved the district, when in reality, they all should never run again. But shame is an archaic idea.
One's already vying for sympathy, saying she was bullied in meetings, and oh, BTW, I've started my reelection campaign.
And as I've said, NC is an at-will state, so no union, and all we can do is protest in the ways they approve of and allow us, and they sit there in stone-faced silence. And nothing ever changes. Crazy. Almost as if by design.
Just went through a RIF process a year-and-a-half ago and I still get chills thinking of the morning we all got emails letting us know if we still had a job, had been moved to another school, etc. (They didn't even have students at school that day to give teachers time to process the news, talk with admin.)
I'm so sorry that you and your people are going through this—it is heart-breaking and leaves lasting consequences.
thanks for the comment and the support. Yeah - letters start going out to affected folks today for a day to come to a remote location where HR will let them know, and give them concerned looks while they do it. It's horrible. We'll never be the same.
I honestly have no idea. There's a better model out there for public education, but implementing it would be nuts to figure out, agree upon, and then execute. Just urge community engagement and support of public education everywhere. It was one of our country's best ideas. It can be again. I hope.
Maybe the lay-offs were a good thing??? It's almost like we were spending over the budget and now we need to cut back. We will get out of this deficit so much faster without these fluff positions. Actually, scratch that, also not-fluff positions. Some teachers in our school system do deserve to be fired.
You may be interested in this Back to school finance class, offered for free online.
https://debtcollective.org/event/back-to-school-finance-training/
From the description:
“Why is the district closing schools? Firing teachers and paras and staff? Shuttering programs? Budget shortfalls, fiscal crises, and sky-is-falling updates from the board, superintendent, and business office.
But how do we know what’s really going on? There are always hidden stories and possibilities buried in the numbers. From debt service to reserve funds to pension contributions, the truth about the money is there in public documents but the public rarely gets an opportunity to figure out what it all means.
That’s what this training is all about: how to find and interpret the documents communities, movements, and unions need to understand the real financial situation of their schools and craft campaigns to change those situations”
thanks!
First, I'm so sorry you are going through this at all. I'm more sorry you are going through it after the school year is already here. I'm no longer a NC resident so don't know the background that got WSF here, but know from work elsewhere that, as you said, the underlying cause is never an overnight thing.
Can I ask a clarifying question? From the news story, it sounds like roughly half or more of the positions reduced were in central departments. Is your sense that isn't accurate? That it doesn't mean much in the context of the school based cuts?
Totally understand if you don't want to spend more time thinking about it to satisfy another's curiousity.
At Central, they shuffled the cups, consolidated. Positions were "reduced," but the head count stayed roughly the same. WE don't have a director of the science division, for example, but they're still there, because we don't have that position anymore. They're a Program Director under another director (math). As those of us in the trenches have taken to saying, "The Executive Cabinet must be preserved at all costs!"
Wait wait - never mind, I completely misread the numbers. My mistake.
I'm actually more curious how they are cutting so many (what I assume are) special education positions while maintaining services ...
According to the state formula (which they use as our funding base), we were overstaffed in many areas - APs in buildings, EC workers and assistants, etc. In order to make the numbers work and make expenditures match the income, this is the route they chose. There were limited other options, but those went this way. The thing is, this district has worked for nearly a decade at the "higher than state allotment" of ECs and APs. For one crowd, that's a target to cut, but for those of us with muddy boots and parents, that's how the schools in the district have operated for many families' worth of kids to go through.
Services will not be maintained. We're going to have the stuffing sued out of us by parents of EC kids. And they know their laws. Not to mention schools that will spiral into worse discipline problems and violence, since APs are being cut.
We have a foolish board member (TBF, they're not the only one) who asks nearly at every meeting, "What can we do to stop from losing so much money to charter schools?" (voucher money comes from the state to the district, and then we pay the charter schools...it's because NC GOP are dicks, and want to make us feel that), and every time they say that in a meeting, I'm like, "motherfucker, have you not been awake for what y'all have been doing for the past eight years?"
The call is coming from inside the fucking house.
If I ran marketing at a charter or private school, I would only be using video clips of board meetings where they ask questions, utterly dumbfounded about how this happened, along with clips of all the services we're cutting. Our district has become a commercial for charter and private schools.
And now, since this has settled, those of us who are safe (?) are saying the quiet stuff out loud - they're going to come back to cut again, and this next time, cuts will be deeper be default, because there's nothing left on the surface. But the Executive Cabinet must be preserved at all costs!
And also, the people making the decisions have zero skin in the game. I only wish we were all on the same metaphorical island and we could burn their boats, so there's no escape until we solve this, and dire consequences for them if they screw it up. But there aren't. Our interim is a carbetbagger who will be off to the statecoach depot with her bag stuffed full of money (she's making about 4-5x average teacher salary with a travel allowance). All the board members will run again, claiming how THEY were the ones who saved the district, when in reality, they all should never run again. But shame is an archaic idea.
One's already vying for sympathy, saying she was bullied in meetings, and oh, BTW, I've started my reelection campaign.
And as I've said, NC is an at-will state, so no union, and all we can do is protest in the ways they approve of and allow us, and they sit there in stone-faced silence. And nothing ever changes. Crazy. Almost as if by design.
Just went through a RIF process a year-and-a-half ago and I still get chills thinking of the morning we all got emails letting us know if we still had a job, had been moved to another school, etc. (They didn't even have students at school that day to give teachers time to process the news, talk with admin.)
I'm so sorry that you and your people are going through this—it is heart-breaking and leaves lasting consequences.
thanks for the comment and the support. Yeah - letters start going out to affected folks today for a day to come to a remote location where HR will let them know, and give them concerned looks while they do it. It's horrible. We'll never be the same.
I’m a teacher in well-funded Washington state, and this quote got me: “And teachers who’re left with weird survivor's guilt.”
I feel SO horribly for my fellow teachers all across the country who don’t have the autonomy, fair pay, and support that we do.
What can I do to help?
I honestly have no idea. There's a better model out there for public education, but implementing it would be nuts to figure out, agree upon, and then execute. Just urge community engagement and support of public education everywhere. It was one of our country's best ideas. It can be again. I hope.