By Jennifer Eisenbart
EDITOR
With a large turnover in staff at the end of the school year, the Burlington Area School District was already looking at a number of new hires.
Following another round of resignations and retirements approved Monday night, the situation drew the attention of at least one member of the BASD School Board – and another wasn’t thrilled with the process to replace them.
The resignations of Burlington High School teachers Shelby Vogg (math), Dan Luneau (business education), Sharon Kelley (social studies) and Amanda Johnson (English) were approved, as were the resignations of orchestra teacher Darlene Rivest, Karcher Middle School teacher Cynthia Smith and two aides Monday night.
Along with accepting those resignations, though, School Board member Jim Bousman wanted to amend the motion so the Personnel Committee would look into the fact the district has lost 22 teachers at the end of the year.
The amendment was accepted, and the committee will now examine the issues surrounding those resignations and retirements, whether the district has the resources to remain effective – and also make recommendations to stem the tide.
But also on the agenda was the approval of 13 new staff members, including eight new teachers.
Board member Roger Koldeway objected to the appointments because of what he felt was inadequate process. In one case, he said, 80 people applied for a position, but only one was interviewed and then offered the job.
“It’s not an indication of the individuals hired, but the process,” Koldeway said. “If (only) one person’s interviewed, I have a problem with it.”
Board member Rosanne Hahn cautioned Koldeway against condemning the process without knowing any of the circumstances surrounding the hiring.
The appointments were approved by a 5-2 vote, with Ketterhagen and Koldeway voting against them.
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I doubt any study needs to be done. Just like at any business, if the workers are treated poorly, they will leave for a business that treats them better. That is pretty simple, those teachers that are able to leave, are leaving for greener pastures.
Ann – Just like any business, there is typically a handful of workers that whine and complain about everything and the business is better off without them. BASD teachers are well compensated and work in a great community.
Did you read the article? There were 80 applicants for one position, we’ll be fine.
Aaron,
Unfortunately, in most businesses, the whiners are the employees who aren’t qualified to find better jobs, and end up staying. High-performing individuals generally do not whine, but seek better opportunities when they come along. In this case, the teachers who have left are most likely the higher-performing teachers.
Any business worth it’s salt would worry that it’s employees were leaving.
Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do — babysit!
We can get that for less than minimum wage.
A friend on facebook shared this with me, and it’s a hoot. Read on.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning — that equals 6-1/2 hours).
So each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE….
That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6-1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nationwide) is $50,000.
$50,000/180 days = $277.77 per day / 30 students = $9.25 / 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student — a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)
WHAT A DEAL!!!!
Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.
Old with the “old school” and in with the new! Sound like many many good people are interested in working for the district – great news!
It’s pretty simple. When you dump more and more onto the teachers with less and less time to prep and actually plan on what they are teaching, they leave and go somewhere else that treats them properly and gives them time to actually prep for what they are teaching! Just like the private sector like everyone touts, they treat you like crap and you move on to a workplace that don’t treat you like crap, pretty simple in my eyes! Too bad our$80K- $100K+ a year BASD administration cannot figure that one out!!!
Funny how your comment reads like it was written by a whiney teacher “Local Businessman”. Aaron’s comment hits the nail right on the head, there are a handful of complainers on an otherwise quality staff. If you and Ann and Pay’m feel you are under appreciated you should go for those “greener pastures”, MPS and Racine Unified are hiring, that is an easy commute from Burlington.
Also, you kind of burn yourself by using one of the favorite talking points spouted whenever anyone dares to bring up teacher salaries, they are shouted down as just being jealous. Seems you are jealous of the administrators pay.
David,
As I stated in my response to Aaron, I believe the quality staff are the ones leaving, and the whiners are staying behind.
Not a whiny teacher by no means David, there is no way I could do the job that the teachers do. People would be looking at my mugshot online after a week in the classroom!!! Have you bothered to step foot in a public school classroom since you graduated high school? And I am not talking the cutesy 1st grade classroom, I am talking a run of the mill, non honors classroom at the upper high school level! I have and I have seen what the teachers have to contend with, from disrespectful students to administrators that haven’t a clue, but yet they tell you they do even though most of the staff has more years in a classroom that most administrators! Not jealous of admin pay, I work in the private sector and make a decent wage there and I am plenty happy with what I have! As for greener pastures, MPS has residency requirements, so that is out! I suggest you pull your head out of your ass David and see the world for what it is, not for what Fox news paints it out to be for you! Good Luck David!!!
It would be responsibility of the administration to get rid of the negative, whiny, or insubordinate staff. That is not the case here. Staff members are voluntarily leaving at an alarming rate. 20% of the BHS staff has retired or resigned. Well educated and experienced professionals are finding that there are better options elsewhere. Kudos to them for seeking out those better opportunities.
Currently BASD is able to attract many inexperienced applicants directly out of college. BASD serves as a great start for many teachers to gain experience and then move on to greener pastures. A frozen salary schedule does not make BASD an attractive place to work long term. BASD is creating a revolving door for new hires. Unfortunately BASD can not seek out highly qualified candidates with proven experience in the classroom. Hiring staff near the top of the salary scale would only upset the remaining staff due to their ability to reach the top of the pay scale.
If inexperience and continual turnover of staff is what you want for your children, then BASD is quickly becoming that. As the more experienced teachers leave or retire, BASD will be a great place to have a partnership with the area teacher colleges to train their new teachers. The school board is doing a great job of trying to keep staff from the top end of the salary scale, this is the result of those decisions.
Jim – do you personally know all of the people applying for positions at BASD? How can you be so sure they are all inexperienced? Isn’t it possible that there are other experienced educators looking for greener pastures and Burlington is attractive to them? Great effort on the scare tactics and gloom and doom.
The bottom line is, no one is irreplaceable, everyone starts their career with no experience, and people retire. This is a bump in the road that will weed out the old guard that has the deeply ingrained union entitlement mentality and will allow new fresh begins.
Not all of them but I do know of one person that applied, was interviewed, was considered for a position but rejected it due to having to take a pay cut to come to BASD. Ask the district office if they will hire teachers with Masters Degrees and more than 10 years experience. It is bad for morale when you hire someone at greater pay grade than the people you are currently employing. In this case I know they hired a less experienced person for this position.
Perhaps they should do exit interviews with the teachers that are leaving to get the REAL reasons (in person, on the phone, in writing).
Most teachers/employees will not tell anything on their way out no matter what. As a teacher, if you don’t have a good recomendation from your previous employer, you will not get a job anywhere’s else. For that reason, 99% of the people will not open their mouth and tell them the real reason they are leaving. Sad but true!!!
I guess this is what happens when school board and community members spout the rhetoric, “if you don’t like it then leave and go find something better.”