School districts, layoffs and other things of interest....

[mom'sfolly]

Yesterday, I was laid off from my job as a crossing guard. I was planning to quit anyway, so this was no loss; but the topic of discussion is the cutting of safety personnel.

My kid's elementary school just went from 4 crossing guards to one. I think the total projected savings from cutting crossing guards was something like $250,000 districtwide. While I would rather have my position cut rather than cutting teachers, I wonder how my principal is going to decide where to put her only guard. I suspect it will be at my position, a 40 mile per hour, four-lane road without an intersection at the crossing. Five teachers have been laid off at the elementary, and I don't know how many additional staff, and yet I look at the school, and can see no wasted staff or teachers. Every school in the district has portables because all of the schools are overfilled. Next year they will stuff 25 fifth graders into each portable classroom. It all makes me want to do this

Texas spends so little money on schools to begin with, it breaks my heart that they have to cut further. In "rich" districts, like my own, we are limited by the legislature on raising taxes. Our tax rate can't be higher than a certain point, and we give money to the lege so they can redistribute it. Only now, we give tax dollars to the lege, and it isn't coming back. Then the gov has the gall to say that the state isn't cutting teachers, individual districts are. Right that the districts do the firing, but completely wrong on the reasons. Yet again, Texas schools are going to end up in court.

 

[chickened]

The government schools need competition. When there is competition there is better service. Texas should push for voucher/merit systems so a parent can send their children to the schools that perform better and those schools will be rewarded and the dud schools will go away. thus ending arbitrary/blind cutting.

 

[SparkyCrows]

This is sad news for the children of your school district and our nation.

 

[bkreugar]

Momsfolly... I too am a crossing guard here in NC. My position is thru the police dept not the school. I too always worry they may cut my job but my DH always says NAH its public safety one of the last things they will cut.

I really really enjoy my job it's 45 minutes in the a.m. and 45 minutes in the p.m. So 90 minutes total and the pay is $25.00 A day. So for me it is a great part time job. Allows me to be home when my kids are and yet a nice income and ability to do my home sewing business.

Your intersection sounds more dangerous than mine(an intersection with 2 lights and 35 speed limit.

Do you think they will ever rehire people? Has your attendance made it possible for you to maybe work in the cafeteria or something?

 

[WyandotteTX]

Momsfolly,
I am an educator in the Austin area and it is getting pretty bad for every school district across the state. My district is fairly small but we have already laid off 12 teachers. I hope some reasonable solution can be made within the State budgets to properly fund education in our state. It is too important to not do so.

Chickened, please take your political agenda somewhere else. Vouchers, charter schools, private schools are all the same......too many people just dont want come out and say the truth of that which is.......I want my white kids to go to a white school with white teachers and the state to pay for it....or I want my rich kid to go to a rich school with other rich kids and the state pay for it....or I want my christian kid to go to a christian school with christian teachers and the state pay for it.......
Sure there are problems with public education but taking money away to fund the elite of the worlds children sure isnt going to help........
Our Governor has openly stated he dislikes public education and wants to be able to free up that money so his supporters children can get a "good, private, conservative, christian education(in his words)" and the state pay for it. Thats all fine and dandy but who is going to stand up for immigrants, the poor and all of the other needy who NEED education more than anyone else?
Its not like we need more uneducated poor in our state so that we have to build more prisons to house them than we already have......
Dang, gettin me fired up on a Thursday...

 

[mom'sfolly]

Yes, it was five teachers at my particular elementary school, three crossing guards and I don't know how many other staff. I don't know what the district will end up cutting overall, but it is a whole lot of money. It is particularly hard for a growing district like ours. At least the school building projects are bond issues, and they can get done. I don't know what good that will do without teachers to fill the schools. This district needs to cut between $47,000,00 and $75 million dollars. That's the amount of money they expect to be shorted by the state.

Here in Texas, curriculum, testing and textbook purchase are all mandated at state level. You must follow approved curriculum, standard tests and purchase textbooks from the State School Board's list. So lots of state mandates, no so much state funding.

One of the other things up for cutting in this district was eliminating busing for "dangerous" routes to school. I don't know where the district came down on this one, but I sure hope it was one of the things that survived the cut. I know that if I was a parent of one of the kids who had to cross 4 lanes of 60 mph traffic, I'd be raising holy hell if the bus was cut.

I have no problem with voucher programs as long as the schools receiving public money provide all the services that public schools do, this includes: PPCD, special ed, structured teach, programs for children with discipline issues, Talented and Gifted programs, deaf ed, ADA compliant schools, ESL, music, art, PE, reading specialists, etc. There are plenty of private schools out there that "compete" with public education; although most do not have the full range of services that public school does. Most people still choose public education.

 

[australorpchick]

Quote:
I didn't see anything political about Chickened statement, your statement, however, was a different matter.

We moved to Texas almost 5 years ago from California and we've encountered two school districts. In comparison to our school district back in San Diego, one district was pathetic and the other one was worth us moving from our recently built home, so our kids could have a better chance at a good education. If the State offered vouchers, I may or may not take them up on that offer. We're of mixed heritage, and prefer that our children interact with others of various nationalities, so your caucasian statement was incorrect. We're hardly rich, but come from families of varying socio-economic statuses, so that's also incorrect. We are Catholic, but our faith would be secondary to the curriculum offered at a secular school.

As for the poor, immigrants, etc, there are more than enough programs out there to help that category. There is far less assistance for two-income families, like my own, where both parents have paid for their college education (which was done during working adulthood, not straight out of high school), have worked hard and don't make enough to pay for their children's college educations, but earn too much, for our children to qualify for assistance. My family would qualify for much more if I, my husband, or both of us, stopped working so hard. What would that teach to our children? My husband's and my parents did not have college educations, nor did they push their children to get college educations. Somehow, despite not having someone lay down the red carpet, then carrying us across it and paying for it, we still made it. What I feel is unfair is the potential cutbacks to the Advanced Placement courses.

As for the uneducated, being an outsider, this seems like more of a cultural thing here in Texas. It seems socially acceptable to have dropped out of school, maybe have gone back to get a GED, maybe not and to have been arrested. There's no stigma attached to any of these. I had never met a dropout and so many people with arrest records, until I moved to Texas! Don't get me wrong, I love my new adopted state, but some problems need to be addressed by the people, not the government.

This is what I teach my children (society needs a big heaping dose of this) - Life sucks and isn't fair, the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can go on with your life and make the best of it.

 

[WyandotteTX]

You bring up a very valid point about so many dropouts across our state. I have taught High School for 14 years and its sad that students are pushed into a curriculum that only serves a few. What I mean is, not everyone is going to go to college. That is a fact, some students have no desire to do so. But our curriculum in this state is set up only for the goal of going to college. Hence you get alot of dropouts in high schools because many students feel like there is nothing for them......such as any type of vocational training. Alot of kids with no opportunities for the future wind up turning to the military as their only option of trying to do something in life.

I am curious was your first school district experience in a large, city school? and your latter experience in a suburban school?

My point about the vouchers, private schools etc was that they are formed and pushed for by social class divisionists to a large degree. It has been a hotly debated issue in Texas for decades...it comes up and is pushed and then it will fall by the way side for a while....
Sorry if I got punchy earlier but I am an educator, so is my wife, my father was for 32 years, and many of my extended family have been teachers, coaches and principals or even supt. I get very defensive when people start talking about things that are so much a part of my life in many ways. I and my family have dedicated untold numbers of hours to educate other peoples children and its extremely disheartening to have people always bashing you.
I am sure I will get ripped for this post as well.....

 

[WyandotteTX]

Also, I did want to agree with you that there is a disturbing sense of entitlement for many people especially young people. They think so much is owed to them in many ways but do not want to work for it. I am not saying this is the rule either.....I deal with some absolutely great kids on a daily basis and am proud to be around them as they make my life better.
Life is not fair and never has been and never will be. Its hard for many people to understand that concept but I learned it a very long time ago. But that is another story..........

 

[australorpchick]

Quote:
The first district was New Braunfels ISD. The second was Comal ISD. It was like night & day.

I agree with that there is a problem with the curriculum. I've known several students in other states who hated regular high school, but really enjoyed their vocational high schools. Another funny thing (well not so funny, but you can only laugh sometimes), apparently the push for the college goal is there, but sometimes the schools/districts are not prepared for students that are ready to run for that goal. We starting preppy DDs for high school when they were in Middle School. No foofoo-useless classes, they were allowed to pick their art electives, but everything had to have a purpose. As a result, when they entered their freshman year, they were already one semester ahead in credits and had taken classes normally taken by upper classmen. Our district has Dual Credit classes, (For those readers who don't know what that is, the kids can take classes where they earn high school credit and college credit. If the kids get enough college credits, they can potentially graduate high school, with enough credit to skip the first two years of college.) but many of the classes that my kids were in line to take their freshman and sophomore years, they won't be old enough to be eligible. We either have to 1)have them skip that class for a year and hope they remember enough after the lull, or 2) hope they have an AP class available, so they can test out.