Budget cuts.....boo

[rlyons]

:(Well it has finally hit home. The great budget cut axe has fallen. The wife has been told she will no longer have a job teaching next year. I guess our Governor and President are getting what they want, ignorant kids. First they attack the teachers with pay cuts and no more long term contracts and now cut them out of a job. The outragous amount of pay (which is 1/2 what the private sector pays) and the great benefits (900.00 after 30 years of service) is breaking the state and federal bank I guess, couldn't be their pay of course. Not sure how long we can hold on to the house but I guess toys will have to go. had a great vacation lined up this summer, no way now. My health is not so good anymore, but I guess I will try to get some sort of work to help get us by if the doc doesn't find cancer with my biopsy next month. Sorry for the rant but just needed someone to vent it on. Wish us luck please, maybe a miracle will happen and they will change their mind or she can find a new job that pays more than the minimum wage they are offering around here.

[slick97spirit]

So sorry to hear about your situation. Keep your chin up, do what you need to to survive and hang in there. It's happening everywhere.

[Guest]

I knew I didnt like Rick Scott and I dont like him even more now.

[kenw]

Sorry to hear the news! They attack the teachers because that is the group that will work no matter what our govmnt does to them. Up here in georgia the teachers go in on their ferlough days( no pay) to use them for planning. They had to lock the school to keep them out. I guess our govmnt is too stupid to figure out what the rest of the world knows, that you need educated people to function in today's workplace. I guess we'll just ship more jobs overseas and give the fat boy's a raise. If they need to cut expenses just let me loose in our govmnt, I can reduce their numbers by half and save a fortune on eliminating all their privat little projects. But I ramble on so again sorry to hear the news and sit bck to watch us become a 3rd world country!!!!

[CaptainJoe]

You'll both be in Penny and my prayers. Hopefully it will work itself out and she'll be able to find a job teaching close by.

 

The blame game needs to stop and the responsible parties need to take ownership for failures.

 

According to "Some" peoples logic, Everyone that has ever gone to college should have received a degree. If they didn't, it was the obviously the teachers fault? I'm callin a BS!

 

My daughters finnishing up her last couple weeks student teaching in Pennsylvania...

[ediddy]

I'm sorry to hear the bad news. I pray that things will work out for the better. I'm not taking a side on this issue and if I did I would be on the side of the teachers but there is one thing I don't understand. In this country we spend 5 times more money per student than any other country but our students lag behind other countries in test scores and we never have enought money. Where does it go. Oh by the way, if you wanted to save money cut out the department of education.

[Royal Star Ronnie]

It's an Obamanation.

 

I'm a struggling self-employeed small business owner with three kids in college. Over the last 11 years I've gone from 3.5 employees to 1.5 employees, and written off more than $1,200,000 in uncollectible charges. WTF!

 

Nobody is lining-up to bailout my arse. No pension for me.

 

Yep. Let's keep bailing out the big-boys, and ignoring the illegals; that's the answer.

 

We all have to take our lumps and keep moving along.

[Flyinfool]

Hopefully it will work out like it does around here.

At the end of the school year the make all of these teacher layoffs but call most of them back before the start of the school year.

[TearlessTom]

I too will have you in my prayers.

 

What happened to the FL Lottery? Isn't that supposed to be for education. That was one of the reasons I always bought tickets when ever I cross the border which is 40 miles away for me and I go there often.

 

FL is in a unique situation as a large portion of the property owners are older, retiree's or near retiree's who do not have kids or grand kids in the FL school system (aka: SnowBirds) so they don't want to ante up with higher property taxes.

 

My son who just graduated here is finishing his 1st 1/2 year of teaching. His teaching certificate was not ready when school started last Sept so he was able to get on in January.

 

He has already been handed his pink slip for the year and told that although he did a great job and was well liked there was no position for him next year.

 

This is something our local schools do every year to pretty much all school employees then re-hire them at the beginning of the next school year so they are never quite sure if they have a job or not. Kinda makes it hard to deal with.

 

My daughter-in-law is also a teacher with a Masters degree. She has tenure now so she is okay pretty much. My sister-in-law also has her teaching degree but does not teach due to the low pay and lack of stabilty. My sister also has her teaching degree. Taught a few years and got out of it. She now has a pretty good gig doing ON LINE teaching. Pay is much better too and she doesn't have to deal with the classroom or politics. My niece is just finishing up her teaching degree.

 

While still on the local PD I was offered a job as a Resource Officer a couple of times but could not accept due having three kids and the uncertainty of the job position although I would have loved the job. However I have a BETTER job now as a RN in a ER at a Children's Hospital. What can I say, I love working with kids. I would rather spend time with young kids and dogs over any adult I know.

 

The only words of advice is to sincerely pray. I truly believe the old saying "When God closes a door he opens a window"

[Guest scarylarry]

Sorry to hear the news! They attack the teachers because that is the group that will work no matter what our govmnt does to them. Up here in georgia the teachers go in on their ferlough days( no pay) to use them for planning. They had to lock the school to keep them out. I guess our govmnt is too stupid to figure out what the rest of the world knows, that you need educated people to function in today's workplace. I guess we'll just ship more jobs overseas and give the fat boy's a raise. If they need to cut expenses just let me loose in our govmnt, I can reduce their numbers by half and save a fortune on eliminating all their privat little projects. But I ramble on so again sorry to hear the news and sit bck to watch us become a 3rd world country!!!!

 

I know all to well about Ga. my sister move there 20yrs ago to teach and she can't wait to get retired, so much has gone south...

 

Oh and she is ESL teacher

[rlyons]

Well to answer a couple of questions, the Florida lottery money is a joke. For every dollar the schools get from the lottery the state pulls a dollar of it's support money. One reason we are behind the rest of the world in education is just plain old stupidity on our goverment's part. The teachers spend more time on evaluations,testing and the required paperwork for all the reports that the state and federal goverment demand, than they do on teaching. I can not believe how little actual teaching time my wife has. She works at least 12 hours a day at the school and then comes home and works until bed time grading papers and completing reports, this combined with all the extra classes online and in person causes her to work all the time. I will be glad if she can find other work, even though she loves the kids and teaching. I do not recommend anyone become a teacher. The only thing I dread is these are the children that will be our future leaders, god help the USA then. Obama is destroying this nation and I hope people are paying attention, cut education, drive up the debt, destroy the military, increase welfare, looks like a plan to me. A plan for a takeover! I have not lost hope yet but it is going to be a hard, long summer.

[Michael_Bishop]

What gets me about budget cuts in schools and cutting teachers is stuff like this.

http://www.wthr.com/story/14185455/parents-outraged-over-wayne-township-superintendent-payout.

 

Indianapolis - A newly-hired attorney is investigating a local superintendent's retirement deal that provided a huge payout on top of his pension.

The contract has parents and the district upset.

It was a retirement windfall from a controversial contract, creating a million-dollar payout for a school superintendent.

This week, Wayne Township Schools started paying an attorney to see if it can get any of that money back.

Parents say they are furious.

"It's a complete oversight on their part," one parent said of the school board.

"Some of those dollars should go back into the kids' education," added parent Tawnya McCrary.

"It just isn't right. They could have done a lot more with that money," said Joyce Hillard, whose granddaughter attends Wayne Township Schools.

The massive retirement payout was given to former Wayne Township Superintendent Dr. Terry Thompson in a contract negotiated and signed by members of the school board in 2007.

Mary McDermott-Lang, director of communications for the district, says the contract was complicated, and the board didn't realize at the time how lucrative it was for Thompson.

"It wasn't something that the board anticipated. The board really trusted Dr. Thompson," McDermott-Lang said. "They didn't see the numbers in the contract language in 2007."

Here's what those numbers look like:

-More than $800,000 in a lump sum retirement payout

-$202,000, or about $1,300 per day, for Thompson to serve as "Superintendent Emeritus" for 150 days

The district's stopped paying Thompson for the Emeritus position at the end of January, but they still cut him several checks, including $628,467.98 in unused sick time.

"It makes you wonder if that man's getting a million dollars, how many children that million dollars could have paid for athletics and the marching band and how many computers it could have purchased," Hillard said.

In fact, since negotiating the payout in 2007, Wayne Township has had to eliminate 85 staff and 8 teaching positions to save money in the district's shrinking budget.

Some parents blame the school board.

"Most of the time, you're going to read a document before you sign it, at least know what you're signing," McCrary said.

Others blame Thompson, who was once voted Superintendent of the Year.

"I think he should be ashamed of himself. I mean, I think it's an embarrassment that the man is actually taking that amount of money," Hillard said.

The attorney hired to look into the contract is being paid for with money from the district's general fund.

Wayne Township says it's not clear yet how much that will cost.

The board has also asked Dr. Thompson to resign as Superintendent Emeritus

 

Now the school board did not even figer out that it was going to cost them before sighn off on the contract? The kids and teachers get the cuts and upper people running the schools get rich.