Return to School e-mail archive directory
School Issues Newsletter #65: Prototypes, Salary Scales
Date: 04/03/2000 1:41:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: jklagge@bev.net
To: jklagge@vt.edu
Dear Friends,
When people start asking me what happened to my newsletters I know it is time for another one. If you are new to this list, I send out letters on an irregular basis (monthly?) about issues before the Montgomery County School Board. These do not represent any official point of view. They are just my perspective as a member and chair. If you do not wish to receive these, let me know and I'll remove you from the mailing list (which is now about 900 addresses). Past issues are posted on the web site: www.gisone.com/schools.htm, for which I thank Mike Ewing. Andrea Kavanaugh of BEV did a survey of my receipients in the fall, and the results of that survey, along with a comparison with results from a survey in Fall, 1996, are also posted on that web site in case you are interested. As most of you realize, this is not a discussion group--so your reponses to me are NOT sent to the whole mailing list. Please feel free to respond with comments, questions, or suggestions. I published an article about this newsletter and how I view it, in "Electronic Schools", and they have posted it on the web at . (If you get multiple copies of this mailing, let me know and I will try to fix that.)
Prototypes- You probably know that this winter the Board of Supervisors voted to allocate up to $44 million toward meeting building needs in Blacksburg & Christiansburg over the next 5 years or so. After consideration of many options (that seemed to increase weekly) the plan that seemed to meet the most pressing needs in the best and most timely fashion within this budget was to build new middle schools in Blacksburg & Christiansburg, for which land was already secured. I will not here try to go over all the considerations or why we deemed that the best plan. But the suggestion that we acted without due consideration of other possibilities is really absurd in my view. Since we are committed to trying to build structures that do the most for education, in a fiscally responsible way, and that are equitable between the 2 strands (B-burg & C-burg), we convened a committee of almost 3 dozen people representing the schools, parents, students, community members, business representatives and government officials to look at building designs. We asked that the committee consider prototypes first. What does that mean? Perhaps the term "prototype" sounds like pre-fab construction, but that is not at all what it means. Basically it means a building that has already been designed and built (or is being built) by the architectural firm. The value of this for us would be that we would not have to pay and wait for design from the ground up, and we could see what the building was actually like, how it functioned, and talk with people in the building. We have approved 2 architectural firms that each provided a few prototypes from their (extensive) work. The committee chose some of these for further examination--including site visits. The School board did not mandate that a prototype be chosen, but only expressed the preference that one be chosen if the group could agree on one. Though that process is still going on, prospects look good. If the committee recommends one, the SB should be able to act on the recommendation soon. If not, then the process of designing a building would be lengthier. There are some down-sides to a prototype--it may not match all the things that a design committee would like to see in a building. But that always happens anyway because of budgetary concerns. The HS that is now going up in Elliston was at one time recommended by a school design committee to have many more square feet than it now has. These had to be cut down. All building processes have to make sacrifices along the way, so that the outcome is a balance of educational goals and fiscal realities. The big difference in our building process this time is that the BoS set out the fiscal constraints in advance. We have to accomplish our goals within them. If we can find a prototype that works, that will help us tremendously in that goal--in addition to making the process move faster.
In January the SB approved a set of goals that we would like to see in all our buildings in terms of space, facilities, etc. As things stand, many of our schools only approximate to these goals, in many different respects. The same thing will be true of the new MS's in B-burg and C-burg. Whether we use a prototype or not, we will be balancing things against one another. But we will not be paying for new designs (usually on the outside) that win architectural awards. We will be putting our money on the inside, where it counts. In the January discussion of goals for MS design, we had a lengthy discussion about whether we needed to have auditoriums in our MS's. Auditoriums are the most under-utilized space in school buildings (and hence the most expensive), largely because the chairs are fixed in place. Many new school buildings have alternative arrangements that involve a stage and an open area with moveable chairs that can be used for multiple purposes. Sometimes these are associated with a cafeteria, often they are not. No one has ever gotten everything they hoped for in a new school building in Montgomery County. But we have managed and will manage to build educationally sound buildings nevertheless.
Salary Scales- When it comes to salary each year there are 2 separate but important issues the SB deals with--How much additional money will go into employee salaries; and How that should be spread out. Because of real difficulties attracting and retaining good part-time employees, we have made a special effort to provide benefits for those people. The last few years we have set aside an additional one-half of one percent from the total salary increase for this purpose. Last year and this year that has only been enough to buy them an increasingly large 401k annuity, but in the next couple years when the size of that annual annuity purchase is large enough, we will then use it instead to purchase their participation in state retirement and health insurance. To some this extra investment in part-time people may seem frivolous. But to us it is not--part-time people include all bus drivers and classroom aides. These people have direct contact with and responsibility for our students. We really cannot afford to treat them as second-class employees, and we are doing our best to rectify that. With unemployment as low as it is, we need competitve salary and benefits even for part-time people. So, apart from that, salary increases then must be distributed across salary scales generally according to the amount of experience a person has. A comparison of our salary scales with those of surrounding counties shows that we need increases at all levels. But the increases are not necessarily spread out evenly among all levels. This leads to possible conflict within the ranks. Visually our salary scales for teachers tend to sag--the largest increases coming later in the teachers' careers. The MCEA (local teachers' association) has generally advocated for "straightening" the scale (give it a constant slope)--so that more of the increases would go to people in the middle of their careers. This is admirable, but then leaves concerns at the beginning level--how can we compete to attract new teachers?--and at the upper level--how do we best reward our most experienced teachers? Sometimes we hear a desire to "shorten" the salary scale--have fewer steps to the top, and hence you would reach the top in a shorter period of time. Visually this would mean that the slope of the scale would increase. But what happens after that? Presumably the scale flattens after that. The rationale for a shorter scale is that people get more earnings earlier in their career. This is valuable as a way to help avoid some teachers leaving teaching in mid-career. But once a teacher reaches the top, what happens? Increases are much smaller. So a shorter salary scale is something that everyone supports when they are still climbing the scale, but then no one supports when they have finished the climb. It is a paradox that bedevils us every year. Our salary scales now have a "pop at the top". At about the 24th year there is a significant increase, which "takes the place" of more gradual increases that would have come later. No one complains about getting the pop at the top, but then when their later increases are more gradual they complain that they are not appreciated. (Not all teachers at the top complain--I'm just explaining the situation of those that do.) People at the top who get smaller increases than others do so because they got their increases earlier. Now I'm not saying that everyone should be satisfied with what they get. I think teachers are underpaid, and the SB has tried to devote money to that (though there are other needs that can't be ignored--We are now, though, putting less emphasis on class size to focus more on pay). But it is important that people understand the rationale of the salary scales when they complain or hear complaints. We aren't disvaluing experienced teachers. Rather, we expressed our valuing of them by the earlier pop at the top. Perhaps some would now like to argue that we ought to get rid of the shorter scales and just have endlessly climbing scales--but that argument has to come from the MCEA as a whole--not from the teachers at the top who would now benefit from that. It really pains me to hear experienced teachers feeling devalued by this, since the intent is just the opposite.
The proposed salary scales that have been circulated so far this year all come from the MCEA. The administration and the SB have not made any decisions or even any proposals. But as long as most teachers support the pop at the top concept, it is unlikely that significant changes will be made in that. We'll be addressing this issue in May.
Thanks for your patience in wading through some complex matters. Last May I gave the graduation speech to the graduating undergraduate Philosophy majors at VT. The theme of my speech was "never oversimplify". I've tried to stick to that.
Jim Klagge
Chair & District F representative
Montgomery County School Board.
Return to School e-mail archive directory
© Copyright 2004 by Graphic Information Sciences
All rights reserved worldwide.
email: admin@gisone.com