Kent Riddle of the Charleston Teachers Alliance revealed a telling example of mismanagement in the Charleston County School District in Wednesday's P&C. [See Charleston County District Puts Teachers in Financial Bind ]. You might say it is CCSD's mini-version of math wars.
To quote:
About three years ago the district put together a team to create a large Math Coherent Curriculum Manual the year before the state math standards were going to change.The next year a completely new, and equally large, Math Coherent Curriculum Manual had to be created and distributed with the new standards.
Last year, the district spent millions adopting a new math series that has to be taught page by page in order to be effective. Thus, teachers could no longer follow the scope and sequence of the one-year-old Math Coherent Curriculum Manual, making it obsolete.
To top it off, the "new" math series is the same math series the CCSD got rid of five years ago.
Wanna bet this flip-flopping required the purchase of all new books and materials? Wouldn't you love to see an estimate of the actual cost of the duplicate manuals that are now useless?
Riddle has some other cogent points about why the district should not lay its financial burdens on the backs of its teachers. Too bad most of them cannot speak out for fear of losing their jobs.
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8 comments:
Did anyone notice that Mr. Benton of Burke High School fame and his wife, a North Charleston elementary school principal are both receiving bonuses? Where's the progress at the school's they are fronting for McGinley? There hasn't been any. But you can bet when they "retire" next year and go back to North Carolina where they have already retired from that system, they will be basing their SC retirement on their base salery AND their bonuses as their income gets averaged over their last three years. What a scam! McGinley knows it and has won their unflinching loyalty for giving them a golden parachute. In the end Burke and the schools on the peninsula and in North Charleston will be no better for it.
GET MCGINLEY OUT OF HERE...AND SEND HER HAND PICKED MAJORITY ON THE BOARD WITH HER.
If we don't retire these dufusses then we deserve what we get, even if our kids deserve much better.
Next time someone at CCSD tries to tell the newspaper that administrators are taking a bigger hit than classroom teachers, the reporter should tell them to do the math...not just the numbers. Last time I checked a 10 day furlow out of 261 paid work days for administrators who only recently received as much as a 20% raise is still no cut at all. When teacher pay increases are frozen and they are ordered to take 5 days of unpaid furlow for 190 work days, that's a real cut in pay. McGinley and her crowd are playing the media and the public. They take us all for fools. Someone should show McGinley the math. Her budget and her school performance ratings have been fixed to make her look good. McGinley's undoing will be in the details, if anyone in a position to question her will do their homework.
Get your facts right. His wife is not a principal, and unless they bought into the SC for 27 years, they are not eligible for significant SC retirement.
AS for the rest, all the P and C, or you need to do is ask the district for all adminstrative salaries for publication. It is public record and subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Dianne Benton has been identified as principal of the new Pinehurst Elementary which is what part of Morningside Elementary is morphing into starting next fall. Is she or isn't she related to Charles Benton at Burke?
The SC retirement system only requires 5 years to be vested. You can retire at full benefits after 27 years, even it’s before reaching 65. If an employee is vested and reaches 65 with less than 27 years of service, the benefits are still far from insignificant.
There are plenty of loopholes in the retirement system that are being extensively used by those at the administrative level. Those are the ones who seem to have the luxury of double dipping more than your average teacher. The Benton's will be well compensated when they leave Charleston. You can bet they will also leave it virtually no better than they found it when they arrived here in 2006 from North Carolina. Unlike the Benton's and others favored by the superintendent, most teachers have access to none of these special retirement benefits. Certainly few Charleston teachers, if any, have been offered a fat bonus that might inflate their final 3 years of income on which their final average annual salary will be calculated. That's how their monthly retirement will be calculated.
As always, CCSD's numbers are very misleading. The facts and the numbers are down right elusive when it comes to administrative accountability.
Correction 11:32. It should be Midland Park that is being reconfigured with Pinehurst being split off as a new grade 2 through grade 5 elementary school. Midland Park will become a new primary school. Morningside is not involved with this.
Right Anonymous 11:51, Dianne Benton is not Burke Principal Benton's wife, his wife, Gwendolyn Benton, is some sort of lead teacher at North Charleston High, NOT a principal anywhere. She was formerly teacher of the year at Morningside Middle...
There's still too much favortism being shared by those considered to be "all in the family". That's provided they are among this district's chosen few. As far as the record indicates neither Benton deserves much praise for their performance. Please go back to North Carolina. Our schools need leaders who are committed, if not rooted, to the community. We don't need any more traveling edu-snake oil salesmen, otherwise known as teacher coaches or bonus principals. For the most part, these people are totally out of touch with reality as well as the communities to which McGinley has assigned them. When put this way, Ms. Washington at North Charleston also comes to mind.
Uh...who's Mrs. Washington? Oy...
Mrs. Benton was teacher of the year for Charleston County School District a few years ago, and serves on several county-wide literacy and school improvement committees.
Further, she is a literacy specialist at North Charleston High School, who is much respected by the kids and teachers she works with regarding literacy.
Please do not speak of something you do not know. Do some research before throwing everyone into the same pot.
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