Monroe Schools

Acclaro,

Marcia Andrew wrote: Vet, in my first post on this thread, I stated that 4 assistant principals were among those RIF'd. That leaves assistant principals only at the high school (1800 students) and Vail (800 students). There are no "assistants to the assistants"; I don't know what you are talking about. And no, the school district is not top-heavy with administrators. The school district is a large operation with approximately $90 million in revenue from many different funding sources coming in and being spent; approximately 750 employees (full and part-time). Can't run a business that size without some operational people handling purchasing, accounts payable and receivables, compliance with all the state and federal laws, etc., and management and leadership. See my response to Tony for part of the role of central office in aligning teaching methods and substance. You need an HR function. You need buildings & maintenance functions.  [/DIV Ms. Alberico's salary is more in the range of $65,000, not $98,000. And her job involved far more than giving quotes to the Journal (although she does respond to requests from the media almost every single day).  She also is the person who responds to public records requests, is the central point for all questions and complaints from students, parents, community, media, whomever, either finding an answer directly or directing the inquiry to the person with knowledge/responsibility.  Multiple requests every day. She writes newsletters and other communications to parents and taxpayers about what is going on with the public schools.  She keeps the website current. These are just some of her job responsibilities, there are others.  Similarly, someone has to be in charge of technology when you have hardware and software in 12 buildings, internal and external networks.  Both operational software and educational software.  Doesn't maintain itself.

Ms. Andrew, please see the post from jssmith2011 listed below. If the information he has provided is accurate, please explain as this information is in direct contrast to what you have stated about being top heavy, assistants to the assistants and being a multi-layer system, not to mention the exhorbantant salaries. Could you also address the discipline/behavioral issues mentioned by Bill and others. Perhaps you could tell us why the district didn't develop an alternative program (after being intimidated through the legal system by parents of the thugs and removing corporal punishment) to combat the behavior of the new type of "rogue" student the schools must try to educate nowadays.

Dealing with the kids notwithstanding, saying that there is no work to do in a library when kids aren't around is disingenuous. You are in charge of a room full of inventory, many thousands of unique items that are constantly being removed from their proper location and possibly taken off site. They have to be kept in a very specific order to ensure that they can be easily located for future use. Additionally you have new product arriving periodically that has to be categorized and put into the system, marked and filed away properly. And at any given time you need to know exactly what items that belong to the library are currently checked out, who has them and for how long. The logistics alone are a fair bit of work.

Can volunteers be trained to do this work? Sure. As well as the accredited librarians that were doing the job? Nope. The libraries will still operate but at a decreased level of efficiency and effectiveness.

My questions, that maybe Mrs. Andrew could respond to since she's been reading and posting in this thread:

• What is the plan to get the library volunteers trained to perform the job while minimizing as much as possible any losses in effectiveness of the library?
• What will be the vetting process for selecting the library volunteers? Will it be any random parent or person off the street who steps up? Will there be any kind of educational requirement (such as "has a high school diploma or equivalent")?
• What kind of background check will be performed to ensure we aren't letting a predator into our schools?
• What kind of youth protection training will be given to ensure that the volunteer understands proper practices and procedures in both protecting the kids from abuse (and themselves from false abuse claims) and also recognizing signs of and reporting suspected abuse?
• Will all of this be required to be completed prior to starting the volunteer position?
• What kind of funding has been allocated to do all of this? Was this cost factored into the overall savings plan generated by cutting the librarian positions?

I do not envy the school board, even something as small as replacing elementary school librarians with volunteers is not as easy a proposition as most people think it would be. And I only was looking at logistics and background checks...that doesn't even take into account programming such as featured books and/or subjects of the month, or related to current events, trends or fads, book clubs or other functions that are being done currently.

The "alternative" program for mentoring, etc. has already been tried and failed. Garfield Alternative Education Center opened in the early 90's with a huge grant from the state. It was located down on Yankee because they didn't want the students who were expelled and suspended from the high school to be on the same campus. The school ended up housing drug dealers and criminals. The district decided it was too expensive to run so they closed it and bulldozed the building. This was a building that they sold and bought back.

The A+ program was in that building and moved to the Manchester Building. So the issue of having those expelled and suspended off campus must not be an issue at this time.

The school district decided that they needed an "alternative" program for the high school students to pass the OGT so now they opened the Success Academy in the Manchester Building. It has almost the exact same staff that were at Garfield.

It wasn't successful once but let's try it again with the same people......

Marcia Andrew wrote: ... can anyone remember the 3 different types of rock...? ...

Punk rock, Acid rock, and Rock 'n' Roll???    

Acclaro, I agree with you that one of the strategies that has been shown by experience to work is intense one on one mentoring of at-risk, low-performing students. Very hard to duplicate on a large scale without large numbers of adults, either paid school employees or community volunteers.  A teacher can make that difference in the life of a few students at a time. Very difficult to make that difference for all 28 students in the class.

Mike_Presta wrote: Marcia Andrew wrote: ... can anyone remember the 3 different types of rock...? ... Punk rock, Acid rock, and Rock 'n' Roll???

Mr. Presta,

Mike,

groundswat - you make an interesting point. The decisions of our city government do have negative effect on the school system and the taxpayers who support both. The economic downturns and inefficient use of resources have put the school system in a position that few other systems face. It looks as if every municipality around us is growing and we are not. We have a disproportionate Section 8 population and property values are declining at an alarming rate. That is a challenge for the city government to solve. Until then, the school system will have to do the best they can.

JSmith--

I am not going to explain the job function of every non-teacher in the district. I will address the changes and cuts in administration> You are correct, there are currently 8 directors in charge of 8 departments. 2 directors (technology and communications) are being RIF'd and will not be replaced. 1 (Susan Combs, director of student services) is retiring. The new position that you saw advertised will replace her, but will have different functions. Central office will be restructured to have a total of 6 departments. Student services will not be a separate department, but those responsibilities will be covered by others, primarily the dept of learning. (btw, one of the main functions of student services is special ed). So, next school year, there will be 6 directors in charge of 6 depts.

it is true that the Sr Dir of Learning was hired to cover the responsibilities of the prior Asst Superintendent, who retired. Lesser title and lower pay range, but the work still needed to be done.

Data specialists and data managers are required by -- and paid by -- restricted grant money. They don't "crunch numbers to make the data look good." High stakes testing has led to multiple benchmark tests throughout the year to track how well the students are learning. It makes sense to find out while we can still fix it, what has been learned and what has not. Data managers analyze all the test answers to help teachers figure out what interventions are needed. For example, if 5% of the kids in one 4th grade class missed all the questions about multiplying fractions, the teacher would want to help those few kids with the concept. If 90% missed it, however, the teacher needs to figure out a different way to reteach it to the whole class. If 80% of all 4th graders in the whole school missed multiplying fractions, then perhaps there is a larger issue that needs to be addressed. If the data managers were not doing this work, it would fall on the teachers, who are already being asked to do more than ever before. plus, cutting them wouldn't save any money, as the grant money they are paid with would go away.

The football coach is not an attendance "clerk" (there is a clerk and it is an hourly position). His job is not to record tardies and absences, but to actively intervene with the students and their families to solve the problem and get the kids in class. This is an administrative function, and a football coach is ideally suited to provide the level of authority and intimidation often required.

The district engaged in a thorough, thoughtful budget process to identifying positions to cut, starting with each department re-examining each position and other opportunities for cost savings. Input was requested and received from teachers, staff and community members to help set priorities. Particular attention was paid to the views of the principals. There was quite a bit of information presented at school board meetings over several months about the budget deficit we are facing and the process we went through to decide how to solve the problem.

The following positions have been cut (as of the end of this school year): 2 directors, 4 assistant principals, 1 principal, 1 student facilitator, 1 librarian, 5 library managers, 1 counselor, 4 attendants, 4 custodians, 8 secretaries, 1 print shop and 5 monitors. There will be teacher positions cut, but we are waiting until we know how many teachers take the early retirement option. We are hopeful these will balance out and we won't have to fire any teachers.

Middletown scouter, each school's PTO is a separate nonprofit organization, and they are independent of the school system so I can't speak for them. But, consider that the money raised by the Highview PTO was raised with the belief and intent that it be spent for the benefit of that K-5 building. Not for the 6th graders of the whole district.

Ms. Andrew - thanks for your posts here. I have a question about property that the school board might own. I'm thinking specifically of the Roosevelt property and the old Jefferson Elementary property. What plans are there for these properties?