President Don Wilms School Board Address September 22, 2014 Mrs. Smith, Members of the School Board, Dr. Newsome: I borrow tonight from last Thursday’s Times-Dispatch Correspondent of the Day, a resident of Chesterfield County, who wrote about nurses. The lack of respect for school employees is inextricably tied to the economics of education. Teachers and support staff have always been at the mercy of cost-cutting strategies. Our salaries and benefits can readily be manipulated to improve the bottom line. Administrators are aware that the costs of equipment, facility maintenance, and utilities are relatively fixed. No one wants to go to a poorly maintained school with outdated equipment. Education is hard work, and it has become much harder not only because of state and federal mandates, but especially because of Chesterfield County Public Schools’ drive to prove that we can excel with higher rates of poverty and non-English speaking families but with proportionately lower funding from our state and local officials. CCPS employees deal with increasingly complex educational situations with an astounding number of administrator mandates. We are dedicated to teaching the children. But exhausted educators are forced to work extra hours with eroding benefits and miniscule pay increases. Is it any wonder that our school employees feel devalued, trapped, and demoralized? On the eleventh day of school, CEA had its first building leaders meeting. In just 11 days of school a multitude of issues bubbled up. These fifty-six issues seemed to fall into five categories: respect for employee time and responsibilities, technology, culture and climate, evaluation and professional growth, and instruction. Not everything being added to employees’ plates is critical; not every new initiative is vitally important. Between losing planning time to meetings and receiving too many emails to respond to in a single day, the pressure to do more with less is becoming unbearable. From Synergy to Interactive Achievement to Chromebooks to TalentEd to Dreambox, we have too much training with too many implementations and just not enough time. From micromanaging to a “gotcha” culture to bullying, we are pushing our employees to the edge. What exactly is the goal here? How can you impact positive change? First, pass a moratorium on new program initiatives or technologies for the next 24 months. Give your employees time to learn and practice what has been foisted upon them already. Second, require administrators to protect every minute of planning time, keeping it free from meetings not essential and well run. Third, direct administrators to refrain from demanding cookie-cutter lesson plans from employees who clearly have demonstrated they know what they are doing. Teachers on a plan of direct support, of course, should get additional lesson plan guidance, but they should be the exception, not the norm. Employee morale will not improve until educators are treated as valued professionals rather than budget items that can be continually manipulated. If you want exceptional K-12 education, nurture your educators.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:59:14 +0000
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