Occoquan School Board Representative Resigns

Grant Lattin, the Occoquan District representative to the Prince William County School Board, has resigned his position.   Mr Lattin had just begun his third term representing the citizens of Occoquan District.

According to the Washington Post, Mr. Lattin’s letter read as follows:  “For personal reasons, I am resigning from the Prince William County School Board effective today.  It has been an honor to serve the citizens of the Occoquan Magisterial District. I look forward to seeing the School Board continue to make decisions that are in the best interests of the children in our county.”

The school board will have to meet to determine how to fill Lattin’s term.

Rumormongering – Update!

A quick update on our Rumormongering story about phasing-in Math Connects from a few days ago.  We’ve received word from a PWCS Administrator that the school division will be phasing-in Connects starting in grades 3 – 8 in the Fall of 2012 with kindergarten and Grades 1 & 2 in the Fall of 2013.  The cost of the textbooks is a significant concern for many local schools, so if any BOCS members are looking for good causes to given their “slush” funds to, I’d like to suggest the Prince William County School System.

Rumormongering

When I founded this blog I promised myself that I would do my best not to spread unsubstantiated rumors and that I’d research issues before publishing them so as to not stir pots with incorrect information.  Please forgive me as I take a step back from that commitment with this next article.

As some of you are aware, the school division recently adopted new math textbooks, which are supposed to be used in division classrooms starting this Fall (2012).   The school board approved McGraw Hill’s Math Connects for kindergarten through grade 8, which is the reason for this article.

Rumor has it that the division is considering a phased implementation of Math Connects rather than implementing the textbooks in all grade levels in the Fall.  The rumored justification for the phased implementation is cost.  Word on the street is the school division simply does not have sufficient funds available to purchase 40,000 + new math textbooks in one year. Our BOCS has not approved the school division’s budget, yet, and might be interested to know that the budget just might not have enough money available for our children to be given state approved textbooks, even with the state kicking in a chunk of the cost of those textbooks.

Here’s the second part of the rumor.

Central office staff are apparently considering phasing-in Math Connects by implementing it in Grades 6 – 8 and K – 1 in the Fall, with grades 2 & 3 following in the Fall of 2013 and grades 4 & 5 in the Fall of 2014.

Assuming this is true, that’s a very bad decision, in my opinion.

The value of using a K – 8 series is the consistency between elementary and middle school because the 6th grade textbook picks up where the 5th grade textbook ended.  That doesn’t happen right now, and, as a result, our middle school teachers are having to teach concepts and procedures to our children that they should have learned in elementary school.

The phasing the school division is considering would keep those gaps in place until the Fall of 2015 when the first grade of Math Connects students hit middle school.

Math Investigations, the instructional program PWCS is currently following in elementary school, was not submitted to the VA DOE for review and has not been evaluated for content alignment with the 2009 VA SOLS.  As such, it is not recommended by the VA DOE for use in VA elementary schools.  The phasing the division is reportedly considering means that students currently in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades will be using math textbooks that have not been evaluated for content alignment with the current VA SOLs and are not recommended by the VA DOE.  These students will continue to use non-SOL aligned, non-state approved textbooks until they reach middle school.

One note.  The division did phase-in Math Investigations.  During the phase-in students continued to use the old SFAW textbooks.  The difference between then and now is that the old SFAW books had been reviewed by the VA DOE for content alignment with the VA SOLs and were recommended for use in Virginia schools.  So no PWCS student ever used a textbook that was not recommended by the VA DOE, at least not until they started using Math Investigations in 5th grade as Math Investigations was never recommended by the VA DOE for use in 5th grade, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

In this instance, the division appears to be considering allowing students to be taught with materials that are not recommended by the VA DOE and have not been evaluated against the VA SOLs. And they’ll be using those non-state approved, non-SOL aligned textbooks in SOL test years.

Did I mention that I thought the suggested phasing-in was poorly thought through?

In my opinion, if we have to phase in the new textbooks then we should do it in reverse order.  If we can afford a 2 year phase-in, then do grades 3 – 8 in the Fall of 2012 with kindergarten – 2nd grade following in the Fall of 2013.  That way the gaps between ES & MS can begin to be addressed and our children will be using textbooks that have been evaluated against the VA SOLs and are recommended by the VA DOE in their SOL test years.

If we have to do a 3 year phase-in then do grades 4 – 8 in the Fall of 2012, with 2nd and 3rd grades following in the Fall of 2013, and kindergarten and 1st grade going last in the Fall of 2014.  We’ll be able to begin addressing the gaps between ES & MS and, with the exception of our third graders, most of our children will be using textbooks that have been evaluated against the VA SOLs and are recommended by the VA DOE in their SOL test years.

There are two other fairly significant reasons for inverting the phase-in and starting with the upper grades, assuming a phase-in is required.

• Math Investigations adequately met about half of the 2001 math SOLs for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, per the VA DOE evaluations.  That means that our current instructional program is heavily supplemented with materials from other sources. The 2009 SOLs, against which Math Investigations has not been evaluated, are more rigorous than the 2001 SOLs, per the VA DOE’s statements.   Math Connects adequately meets all of the more rigorous 2009 VA SOLs for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades (it also adequately meets the more rigorous 2009 SOLs for kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades).

• There are content and procedural gaps between Math Investigations and Math Connects, and those gaps build every year.  The gaps don’t become significant until students move from 3rd to 4th grades.   Transitioning from a Math Investigations based 2nd grade program to a Math Connects based 3rd grade program will be a lot easier than transitioning from a Math Investigations based 5th grade program to a Math Connects based 6th grade program.

If we have to phase-in the new textbooks, we ought to consider starting with the upper grades.

Twilight is to College Bound Kids What Twinkies are to Marathoners

“Preparing them for a college education with “Twilight” is like preparing a marathoner with Twinkies.”

This line is from Alexander Nazaryan in her article, “Against Captain Underpants: How we are raising a generation of illiterates”, published in the NY Daily News. It comes just days after an op-ed by Dr Sandra Stotsky in Bloomberg stating that “New Reading Teachers Should Pass a Reading Test“.

Why so much interest in reading proficiency? Perhaps it’s because of a recent study demonstrating that the average American High School student reads at a 5th grade level.

“The republic cannot flourish in the 21st century, no matter how much time English or reading teachers spend teaching ‘21st century skills’ . . . if the bulk of our population is reading at or below the fifth-grade level.” — Dr Strotsky

Food for thought folks. If you have high school students who hope to go to college one day, you may want to check their school reading lists.  And if they’re long on books like Twilight, The Hunger Games, or Harry Potter and short on books like To Kill and Mocking Bird, The Great Gatsby, 1776, or Don Quixote, you may want to have a word with your child’s teacher.

Just because reading books like The Great Gatsby are a little boring and harder to get through than Harry Potter,  doesn’t mean our children shouldn’t be required to read The Great Gatsby and other classics, if for no other reason than to help them develop the habits of the mind that require them to pay attention to a task for more than a few minutes and extend themselves beyond their comfort zone.  Complacency isn’t a skill many employers desire, and it’s not a habit many successful people possess.

Snow Days in June?

Rumor has it that Fairfax County is considering using their unused snow days in June to end the school year a day or so early.  Should Prince William County Schools consider doing this as well?

Every year the schedule PWCS follows is based on a certain number of snow days.  When we have a really snowy year, like we’ve had for the past two winters, we sometimes end up short and have increase the instructional day or school year, but when we have a really warm winter, like this winter was, we have more days than the state requires and could end the school year a few days early.  If the community supported it, the school division might consider ending the school year a little early.

Apparently middle schools and high schools have 2 days more than required and elementary schools have 1 day more than required.  From an instructional standpoint, at least based on what I’ve seen in my children’s classes, there isn’t much learning going on the last few days of the school year.  Each day the school division is closed “saves” approximately $166,000, but means that hourly staff, like bus drivers and cafeteria workers lose a day of pay.  The start dates for most camps and summer child care programs are based on the schedule of the public schools in that area, so if the school division were to close a few days early, child care may be an issue for some of our working parents – especially if the school division waits until May to decide.

So what do you think?  Should PWCS end the school year a few days early since we didn’t have any snow days this year?

You can post comments here, or join us on facebook.

2012 – 2013 Budget

Below is a summary of the cuts and increases in the 2012 – 2013 budget.  The budget is the same as it was for the 2011 – 2012 school year, with the following exceptions:

• Pension and Group Term Life rates have increased resulting in $32 million additional expense.
• Approximately 2767 more students are expected to enroll in PWCS next year, costing an additional $24 million.
• Staff salaries will go up one step for an average increase of 2.89%.  The actual % increase will vary by step and grade with some staff receiving less than 2.89% and some staff receiving more than 2.89%.  The projected cost of this increase is approximately $17 million.
• Staff will be required  to contribute 1% of salary towards their pension benefit, but they will receive an additional 1% salary increase to offset that.  There will be no net decrease in staff paychecks as the 1%’s will offset one another, however, the division will incur additional costs because of payroll taxes on the salary increase.

To provide for these additional expenses, the following cuts will be made to the budget:

• Overall spending, except as noted below, will remain at 2011 – 2012 levels.
• The “in-school” contracted day will increase from 7 hours a day to 7.5 hours a day.
• Spending across the board will decrease .5%, including spending at local schools with an estimated savings of $3.9 million.
• Energy conservation efforts are projected to save about $200,000.
• Additional revenues from the state are projected at $1.9 million.
• Deferring the Devlin Road school 1 year is projected to save about $2.7 million.
• Increasing middle school class sizes to the state maximum is projected to save $1.8 million.
• Increasing high school class sizes to the state maximum is projected to save $1.3 million.  Elementary classes are already at the state maximum.
• Reducing overtime is projected to save $300,000.
• Further reductions to central office budgets are projected at $900,000.

The Superintendent still needs to find an additional $5 million in cuts, which he can find at his discretion.  The school board directed him to brief them on any cuts he proposes before he implements them and further directed that any additional funds  received from the state or county should be used to reduce class sizes and / or adjust the CIP.

Cutting .5% may sound easy, but when you look at the individual school budgets you see how difficult cutting .5% will be.  For instance, Ashland Elementary has a total budget of $5,739,432 – .5% of that is only $28,687.  But the majority of the school’s budget is salaries and benefits for staff, which can’t be cut as elementary classes are already at the state maximum.  Backing out salaries and benefits leaves $451,000 from which the $29,000 must be cut.  That $451,000 includes such “discretionary” things as overtime, substitute teachers, phone, travel expenses, field trips, office supplies, medical supplies, custodial supplies, and instructional materials – with the two largest being substitutes (budgeted at $83,000) and instructional materials (budgeted at $319,555).  And we’ll be buying new math textbooks this year.

Budget Passed!

The school board passed a budget for the 2012 – 2013 school year.  The budget is the same as was presented last week with the following changes:

(1) School employees will get a step increase

(2) Superintendent will make the additional $5 million in cuts necessary to provide the step increase at his discretion

(3) Any additional funds received will be used to reduce class sizes and / or adjust the CIP.

One major issue is still pending, but it’s a General Assembly issue.  The General Assembly is considering requiring school division employees to pay 5% of their pension costs; an equal salary increase would accompany that mandate so staff would see no decrease in net pay.  School divisions would incur some costs as they’d still be responsible for FICA taxes on the salary increase.  School divisions may be given up to 5 years to phase the co-payments in.

School Board Budget Meeting 3/28

On Wednesday 3/28 the PWC School Board will meet to debate and approve a budget for the 2012 – 2013 school year.  The meeting will be at 7pm in the School Board room at the Kelly Center.  The meeting is open to the public and will be televised.

So what are your thoughts?  Will the school board approve a budget?  Will they be able to find enough funds to provide teachers and staff with a step increase?  What do you think should be reduced or eliminated?  What do you hope doesn’t get cut or eliminated?  There’s been some talk that the cuts will hit central administration and allocations to local schools.  What do you think can or should be cut at the individual school level?

Feel free to comment here or join us on facebook.  Teachers and school division employees are welcome to comment – while user names are required to comment, you don’t have to use your real name.

Updated Update on the PWCS 2012 Budget

The school board rejected the revised budget proposals at the meeting on March 21st and sent the division back to the drawing board.  The school board will meet again on March 28th to discuss and hopefully approve a budget that:

1. Provides a step increase for PWCS teachers, not just a 2% salary increase.  Estimates are that providing a step increase will require $5 million more in cuts.
2. Returns class sizes in MS & HS to their current levels as opposed to the state maximums as proposed in the revised budget.  Cost to provide this is estimated at $3.1 million.

Gil Trenum asked that the Devlin Road school not be pushed back a year – estimated cost $2.7 million. Alyson Satterwhite asked that the division consider providing transportation to New Directions, the only school in the division that does not have transportation.

School board members also identified several items they’d prefer not be considered for reductions.  These items include:

• Specialty programs
• Transportation for specialty programs
• Employee benefits
• AP / IB / ACT / SAT / PSAT fee subsidies

Because this question has come up several times, here’s a very basic explanation of the difference between steps and salary increases to help folks understand why having a step increase is so important.

Teachers are paid for their years of service and qualification.  Years of services are supposed to be equal to steps with grades awarded for different qualification levels.  So a teacher with 5 years of service and a Masters will be paid more than a teacher with 5 years of service and a Bachelors, and a teacher with 3 years of service and Bachelors will be paid less than a teacher with 5 years of service and a Bachelors.

Steps are supposed to be the same as years of service, meaning that each year you work as a teacher you go up a step.  As you go up a step your salary is supposed to increase.  In PWCS a step increase is roughly equal to a 2.89% salary increase, though the exact percentage increase varies for each step and grade.

PWCS has not provided a step increase for a few years, so a teacher with 10 years of experience who should be at Step 10 is still at Step 7, or a teacher with 3 years of service is still at a Step 1.

Why is that important?  Equity.

If a teacher moves from another county to PWCS with  10 years of experience at a Step 10, she’ll be hired in PWCS with the salary equivalent for a Step 10.  A teacher who has worked for PWCS for 10 years will only be a step 7 and will only be paid the salary equivalent for a  Step 7.   At roughly 3% per step, that could be as much as a 9% difference in pay, with the long term PWCS employee on the short side.

If a teacher moves from PWCS to another county, she’ll move at her step in PWCS.  So that same teacher with 10 years of experience in PWCS who is at a Step 7 would move to another county as a step 7, not a step 10.

PWCS has hired a lot of new teachers in the past few years. Many of those teachers have not received a step increase since they started working here.  So a teacher who has been working in PWCS for 3 years is at the same step as a teacher who just started this Fall.

Salary increases do increase base pay, they do accrue to pensions, and they’re even across the board, so they’re better than nothing.  But they aren’t steps and if there’s money available for a step increase, then we should find a way to provide one.

PWCS 2012 School Division Budget Update

2012 School Division Budget Update

Amid all the hyperbole and hysteria, it seem the PWC school board will be voting on a final budget on the 21st of March.  The budget has been updated and now includes a 2% across the board salary increase for all employees.  That increase comes at the cost of a .5% across the board spending cut, including reduced school budgets, and increased class sizes.  Our MS and HS class sizes will now be the state maximum.  You can view the details here as well as read a list of questions and answers from the school division about the changes in the budget.

Several things are still in limbo – namely the cost of competing adjustment (COCA) and whether school division employees will be expected to contribute towards their pensions.  Our state legislators have told the school division that they expect the COCA to be restored.  The General Assembly is still debating mandating that school division employees provide 1% of their pension costs, and requiring that the mandate be offset by an additional pay increase to employees so that the net effect on their paychecks will be zero.   There was some talk of the General Assembly mandating that school division employees pay 5% of their pension costs, but that wouldn’t go into effect until 2014 and we’re still searching for details about that proposal.

This budget debate has been particularly vitriolic with harsh statements and frustration from people on all sides of the spectrum.  At times it seemed like simply stating your opinion was an invitation for attacks and accusations of disrespect, and the attacks and accusations of disrespect came from both sides.  Frankly neither side has exhibited exemplary behavior in this debate.

Having said that, here are a few points I felt needed reiterating or clarifying:

#1 PWCS Teachers Are the Lowest Paid in the Region

The source of this statement is the salary information in the 2012 WABE report, which shows PWCS teachers with the lowest average salary of all of the school divisions listed.  This figure has been cited loudly and often, and it is correct  It’s also misleading.  It’s misleading because teachers are paid for years of service and qualification, so a school division that’s growing and has lots of newer teachers will have lower average salaries than a school division with more experienced teachers.

So, rather than looking at the overall averages, you have to compare the salaries of similarly qualified and experienced teachers.  Here are the salary ranges and PWCS salaries for similarly qualified and experienced teachers according to the WABE.  Please note that while the WABE report includes data for Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland, I disregarded them because they’re in Maryland.  The WABE also does not include Stafford and Fauquier counties which are our “neighbors”.  Since they aren’t part of the WABE, we did not include them.

For teachers at Step 1 with a Bachelors Degree the salary range is from $42,400 to $44,400.  PWCS is at $43,612.

For teachers at Step 1 with a Masters Degree the salary range is from $48,000 to $50,047.  PWCS is at $48,810.

For teachers at Step 9 with a Masters Degree the salary range is from $53,011 to $66,848.  PWCS is at $58,312.

So for each step our salaries are neither to top nor the bottom and are about average.  However, both the Fairfax and Loudoun County school divisions allocated funds for salary increases for teachers in 2013, so if PWCS does not allocate funds for salary increases we will fall behind.  Assuming the budget gets approved on the 21st of March, PWCS staff will receive a 2% salary increase, which will help keep us in line with Fairfax and Loudoun.

#2 Superintendent Walts Has Gotten Huge Raises While the Teachers Have Gotten Nothing.

Since 2008 PWCS teachers have received 15.95% in steps, salary increases, and bonuses.

• In 2008 teachers received a 2.9% step increase and a 3% salary increase.
• In 2009 teachers received a 3% step increase and a 1.8% salary increase.
• In 2010 teachers received a 2.9% salary increase.
• In 2011 teachers didn’t receive any increase.
• In 2012 teachers received a 1.75% salary increase and a .6% bonus.

The source for this is Milt John’s presentation to the PWC Committee of 100.

In 2008 Superintendent Walts had a salary of $228,115.  In 2012 his salary was $260,563.  That’s a $32,448 increase from 2008, or 14.24% increase.  The source for that data is Inside NOVA’s salary database.

So our teachers have received a combined increase of 15.95% since 2008 and the Superintendent has gotten a combined total of 14.24% increase.

Yes, the Superintendent gets paid a lot and is the 2nd highest paid school division superintendent in the region.  But his salary increases have not been greater than the increases the teachers have received.  Whether his salary is appropriate…..that’s a whole other conversation.

#3 PWC is the 9th most affluent county is the county and our teachers deserve more

According to Census data, as of 2010, Prince William County had the 9th highest median household income in the nation at $91,098. Ranked above PWC are: Loudoun County at $119,540 of income, Fairfax County at $103,010 of income, Arlington County at $94,986 in income, and Stafford County at $94,317 in income.  Not coincidentally, the counties included in the WABE report with whom our teacher salaries have been compared include Loudoun, Fairfax, and Arlington.

The same Census report showed that the median per capita income for Prince William County was $35,737.  Entry level teachers with a Bachelors degree are paid $43,612 by PWCS.

Just for kicks I compared the median household income, the $91,098 figure, to the salaries for teachers at step 1 with a Bachelors and step 9 with a Masters.

At Step 1 with a Bachelors, teachers are paid the following percentage of median household income :

• Loudoun – 37%
• Fairfax – 43%
• Arlingtion – 46%
• Prince William – 48%

At Step 9 with a Masters, teachers are paid the following percentage of median household income:

• Loudoun – 44%
• Fairfax – 56%
• Arlington – 70%
• Prince William – 64%

That’s a rather interesting measure as it appears that as a percentage of median household income, PWCS pays our teachers among the highest rates in the region and teachers in Loudoun are among the lowest paid in the region.

#4 PWCS Test Scores are great so our teachers deserve more

I guess that would depend on your definition of great.  I give our school division a “C” based on our SOL scores and a “C- / D+” based on our SAT scores.

Our SOL scores are about average for the state and region.  We outperform state averages and regional norms on some tests and under perform on others.  Overall, we’re about average for the state and region, and average is a “C”.

Our SAT scores are a different matter.  PWCS is below US and state averages and scores lower on the SAT than every other school division in the region except Manassas and Manassas Park (and Manassas beat us by 1 point last year).  We’re more than 150 points below Fairfax and 100 points below Loudoun.

Sorry, but that’s not average.  For the state and US, which we’re below but close to, we get a “C-”.  For the region, where we’re one of the lowest performers, we get a “D+”, and that’s being generous.

PWCS is an average school system.  Not bad, but not great.

#5 PWCS teachers work long hours grading papers and putting up with garbage and deserve more

Every school division listed on the WABE has a 7.5 hour contracted “in school” day, except for Alexandria and PWCS.  Alexandria has a contracted “in school” day of 7.25 hours while PWCS has a contracted “in school” day of 7 hours.   “In school” means physically present in the building, not just doing work, and every teacher I know does tons of work after his / her “in school” hours.

Teachers have to do a lot of work at home to perform their jobs adequately.  Much more than the 7 hours per day they’re contracted to be “in school”.  The only benefit the lower “in school” hours provide them is the flexibility to work from home if they want instead of being stuck in the school building.

While that’s a nice benefit to have, it doesn’t mean our teachers get to slack off – I don’t know a single teacher that doesn’t bring stuff home to grade or prepare.  But I also don’t know a single salaried professional who doesn’t also do that. While I respect the work teachers do,  just like working 80 hour weeks is expected of accountants during tax season, working outside your contracted “in school” hours is part of being a teacher.

#6 Teachers are being disrespected

I saved the best for last.  I don’t know what it is about the internet, but people who are really nice in person become total jerks when they’re on the internet.  I say that first because I’ve read comments and heard statements that make my hair curl – from both sides of the debate and even people who said they didn’t care which was really shocking!

Here’s the thing, though.  Posting accurate information and questioning the decisions the school division has made is not disrespect.  Flipping middle fingers, name calling, yea, that’s disrespectful.  But asking questions and clarifying information isn’t disrespectful.  Presenting misleading or cherry-picked information and then getting angry when someone attempts to clarify that misleading or cherry-picked information is disrespectful.

A PWEA representative was passing out buttons at a grade-in a few weeks ago that read “I Support Public Education”.  I don’t know many people who don’t support public education.  I do know many people who don’t think taxes should be raised to pay for salary increases for teachers when the economy is so bad and people are suffering.  I do know many people who question the decisions the school division is making, especially regarding the instructional programs and approaches we’re using.  That doesn’t mean they don’t respect or support public schools or teachers, just that they have a different opinion.  I’m appalled that to some people in the public sphere, stating that you don’t believe taxes should be raised to give teachers salary increases has been characterized as “disrespectful” to teachers or bullying.

As adults we should be able to express our different opinions without being accused of disrespecting schools or teachers or bullying.  Education professionals have no right to demand or expect blind acquiescence from the public over everything they do.  Nor do political figures.

Disagreeing is not disrespecting.

It pains me to have to say that, but the vitriol has just gotten out of hand and it needs to be said.  We complain constantly about the state of affairs in our country where our political leaders appear utterly incapable of ordering lunch without casting aspersions at one another.   Yet when tough times hit and difficult decisions needed to be made here in our little county, we emulated our national leaders and acted like children.  Honest discourse based on facts were cast aside in favor of specious rumor mongering and hysterical hyperbole.

It’s been disgusting and pathetic.   We, and our children, deserve better.