teacher furloughs

[knieft]

No thread on this yet, so I thought I'd start one.

How do parents feel about this 17 day reduction in school days? Perhaps they should call it a student furlough.

I teach at a local charter school and am not sure exactly how this will play out for our school and/or my class, but a few thoughts come to mind...in no particular order:

The teachers appear to be running scared of layoffs (and we'll see how a preliminary union vote goes tomorrow) but how about laying off the top heavy administration. I don't have data, but I suspect that if DOE laid off everyone above the principal level there would be _plenty_ of money to spare. And schools would finally be able to deal with teaching the students instead of implementing DOE top-down silliness.

Why not have the 17 days come off the end of the year instead of dispersed throughout the school year on Fridays. Would that be easier for working parents to deal with? Would it be more "honest" to cut the school year short? (Thank Kelli for this idea.)

Would it be more "honest" to simply have an across the board pay cut for all DOE employees (including teachers) and not have the furlough days?

There is some serious irony in having teachers get more days off (paid or not) than they already do...

As a teacher, I may have a dilemma. I have no idea whether I will actually have the choice or not to participate in the furloughs. But if I do have that freedom, wouldn't I chose to teach on the furlough days? After all, the pay cut is going to happen anyway, but I really don't want to be responsible for 17 lost school days. Given my drithers, I would ignore the furloughs. This would outcast me from many teachers, but that's OK. If I, or other teachers, found a way to still hold classes on furlough days, would that simply send a message to DOE that they can up the furlough days in the future? Slippery slope stuff?Don't I _have_ to participate in furloughs to keep the responsibility of the cuts affecting students on the government (and the teacher's union...sigh)?

You may be able to tell that I have about as much respect for HSTA (the teacher's union) as I do for the crippling top heavy administrators of DOE--very, very little.

Please feel free to respond and don't worry about offending me as a teacher. Just wondering what parents, and even folks w/o school age children think about all this.

Cheers,
Kirt

[Daniel]

Maybe a fund raiser can be done for each elementary school to maybe keep the school open for all or some of the furlough days. Like if every family gives $10 I think that would help keep the schools open on those days. At least cover the cost of supplies and electricity for those days. We can do this.

Daniel R Diamond

[keaaukizzau]

oops... forgot to share this info I found earlier today on why the furlough days are spread out instead of clumped at the end of the year (which would allow teachers/students/parents whoever to start summer jobs early, find child care)...
via the HSTA website:

Q: Can't the furlough days just be taken at the end of the year?
A: The DOE plans to shut down the schools on the furlough days. If all furlough days were taken at the end of the year, it would affect the other union employees who are hourly workers, who would not receive a paycheck for that time period. In addition, taking furlough days at the end of the year could impact ERS credit for teachers.

[csgray]

Actually charter school teachers aren't being furloughed, they took the hit to their budgets up front when they got allocated 1/2 the per pupil amount that DOE schools get. It is up to each charter school's LSB to negotiate the furloughs with their teachers if they want them. However, SPED teachers and SPED support staff are DOE employees and will be furloughed which means those students will have no additional support on furlough days. Many charter schools don't have classes on Fridays already, so the impact to those schools will be minimized.

Carol

[pslamont]

This is such a can of worms. It seems the DOE has not made any good choices regarding the Furlough days...

Aren't SPED employees funded by the Feds? Don't the Feds regulate the number of hours in their classrooms?

Don't Hawaii schools receive federal subsidies, and aren't those based on a mandated number of school days/hours per year?

We are making it miserable for parents by spreading out the furlough days because it might inconvenience some hourly employees regarding pay schedules? Does that make sense?

This whole tossing the kids out to the wind over this budget problem is a horror to me. Hawaii already has one of the worst school systems in the country. We need to clean house from the TOP down.

Just my thoughts....

I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"

[JerryCarr]

Thank you, Pam. I couldn't have said it any better. I know a number of teachers, and they often complain about the frequently useless meetings and training sessions they are forced to attend. While some of them are helpful, they describe most as bureaucratic exercises designed to justify some "coordinator" or "liason" positions in the bloated administrative heirarchy. I know a lot of these are federally mandated, but is seems like this would be a good area to cut back rather than reducing the already inadequate amount of classroom time the kids get.

Just adding my two cents,
Jerry

[Greta]

If you don't like HSTA I suggest you try working in a non-union state where you will do all administrative and counseling duties during your "spare time." Don't include your lunch in that spare time because it will not be duty free.

And yes, Hawaii DOE spends a lot of dough on meetings, training, and the like for everybody above teachers. Just cutting the interisland flights along by the higher ups would pay for those days. I have gone from a lei-studded buffet replete with the DOE Who's Who flown in from Oahu and then back to my roach infested classroom that was in such bad shape it harkened back to seperate but equal days. It's scandelous really.

[knieft]

Interesting and thoughtful replies, all!

Carol,

Yes you are right. The charter budget cuts included the furlough percent cut plus. But that does mean that charters can handle the budget cuts as they see fit, as you said. And, yes, some charter school programs have no student contact hours on Friday. My class does, however, go "full time" and will to continue so.

Keaaukizzau,

That's HSTA logic for all to see!

Daniel,

That's an interesting idea, but getting DOE to go along with it (and parents) would be a sizable problem.

pslamont,

Can of worms? Perfectly put.

JerryCarr,

Charter schools have cut much of these garbage meetings out, but your point is right on. Educational reform via teacher inservice is often a lame idea with lame implementation. Even "standards-based" education will likely be seen historically as another in a series reform bandwagons undertaken with no research to support it.

Greta,

No need to straw man me. I know how important unions have been historically. Teacher's unions are likely a necessary evil at this point, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be doing their job better, or that I should be happy with what they are doing. They suffer from the same top-heavy power-player troubles as the employers. As a public teacher in Hawaii I pay some $50/month to HSTA and watch them build administrative buildings and give money to politicians. And prevent _bad_ teachers from getting fired. And negotiate away student contact time...sigh.

As a charter school teacher, I can be "non-renewed" each year. There is no tenure, which I think is how it should be.

And yes the waste is horrific. If the public only knew! Some basic math. Let's say Hawaii spends 10K per student per student per year (it is way more, especially including SPED, which is often more than 20K per SPED student).

A 4th grade class I had at Keonepoko years ago had 34 students, but lets say, 30 students.

30 X $10,000 is $300,000 dollars. Let's say the teacher's salary is $50,000, that leaves $250,000 for overhead, including facilities, materials, principals, librarians, Hamamoto,etc.

How does that compare to a real world classroom budget at a charter school? I have on average 20 6th grade students at HAAS Charter school, and the per pupil DOE "reimbursement" has varied over the years, but let's use 5,000 (which is a bit more than is happening this year) but it is a nice round number. 20 students X $5,000 is $100,000. Take half for the teachers salary. That leaves $50,000 for overhead. Even at $20,000 per year classroom rent, that leaves $30,000 for furniture, books, materials, computers, etc--much of which could be considered a depreciated capital expense that won't be needed every year.

We can bicker the details of the actual numbers, but what happens to that extra $150,000 per class at Keonepoko and every other regular DOE school? (Some extra SPED money goes to charter schools, but it also goes to regular DOE schools, so it doesn't really change the basic argument here.)

How is that kind of overhead tolerated in a democracy? The waste is absolutely horrific. People who run their own small business would _love_ an overhead (above salary) figure like that, no?

If public education for all is a value our society holds, why not give the parents a $6,000 per year "voucher" and they can go shopping for the school they prefer (DOE, charter, or private)? The cost to tax payers is pretty much halved. The variety and diversity of schooling options would quickly multiply.

To put it another way, society has decided that monthly stipends for the elderly (social security), and, say, monthly stipends for the poor to buy food (food stamps) are of value to society. But we don't say you have to spend your social security check, or food stamps, only at government stores. (Actually, that might be an idea for food stamps...)

The old libertarian ideal that "education is too important to leave to the government" might need some modification these days: education may be too expensive to leave to the government. And, a really bad return on investment.

I don't really want to hijack the thread I started but, sheesh, I am a parent and a teacher and a tax payer, and I'm just plain tired of this lunacy...

OK, I'm done whinging.

I wonder how the teachers voted today...

Kirt

[knieft]

FWIW,

from HSTA:

"Preliminary results indicate teachers voted 81% to 17% to approve the new contract. Under the proposal agreed with the Department of Education, HSTA members on a 10-month schedule will take 17 furlough days during the school year; members on a full-year schedule would take 21 furlough days."

[loffelkopffl]

another brilliant move by lingle