Open Letter to Dr. McKinzie

February 17, 2010

Dear Dr. McKinzie,

I attended the School District’s Staffing Plan meeting yesterday and left with grave concerns about the recommendations that are coming to you from that committee. There are four recommendations within that plan that have a price tag of $455,945.00! These recommendations, I was told by Ron Ciranna during the meeting, come with your knowledge and approval. Surely you can understand that when the teachers and support staff are, on a daily basis, being asked to do more for less; while being told that they should “just be thankful to have a job” PEA would be very vigilant about how the District plans to spend its money. So, it boggled the mind when I saw the above information yesterday. The explanation that this has to be done because “these folks are doing two positions” also rang hollow when I know what is being asked of teachers and support staff.

When we contact legislators about lack of funding for schools/supplies, salaries, and health care and the like they constantly tell us “we send the money to the District, it does not prioritize its use wisely” and this is the type of material that they throw at us. I know that the legislature does not do what it should when funding schools and when it sends unfunded mandates, but that means that we need to be all the more vigilant when allocating what does come. PEA has and has had for quite some time concerns about the burgeoning size and cost of District Office Management positions and we have spoken of these concerns. Yesterday’s Staffing Plan meeting just put a laser focus on these ongoing concerns.

As you will recall, under the previous Superintendent, we went from 5 Area Assistant Superintendents to none, perhaps not the wisest decision but one that was trying to address a District Office that was top heavy. Under your leadership the District added back that level of supervision with the creation of Senior Director Positions. We started with a Senior Director’s of High School, Middle School, and two at the Elementary level. We now have some 12 Senior Director level positions with a new one being contemplated in this newest Staffing Plan. We have also seen an increase in Directorships, Senior Coordinators, and Coordinators. We now have some 19 Directors, 36 Senior Coordinators, and 13 Coordinators. The District has added the Department of Rigor and has, of course, a number of consultants. I am acutely aware of the unfunded mandates but each mandate seems to grow the District Office. The mandates also impact our teachers and support staff; yet there is no move to find ways to get them the assistance they need to meet the workload demand placed upon them. Where are their “additional positions to meet the requirements”?

The School Board constantly speaks of their concerns about the “Stimulus dollar funding cliff” coming June 30, 2011. We are also aware of presentations currently being made by the District to Polk’s parents and the community. They include information on the funding crisis, which includes the need to find funding for the 400+ teaching positions currently being paid by the disappearing Stimulus money, and yet we have a Staffing Plan proposing four positions that alone that carry a $455,945.00 price tag! The phrase that comes to my mind is “tone deaf!”

Tone deaf to the fact that the people that are most responsible for moving the rigorous and relevant learning in this District are the teachers. They are drowning in the paperwork and workloads being placed upon them with no help in sight. While the growth of management positions at the District level seems to have no end in sight. Forgive me but when I sit in a meeting where I am told we have to do this because “these folks are doing two jobs” it just does not resonate. The people in the trenches do much more than that on a daily basis.

Tone deaf to that fact that a District that speaks of having no money, and fears for the future, will be viewed through jaundiced eyes when they then find the money to recommend upgrading and adding additional District level positions. All the while saying they fear they can’t afford to keep people working or pay adequate wages.

A full Principal position at $98,987.00* for a school site that has less than 200 students, whose students leave at 1:30 pm and who, unlike like their other principal counterparts, run no after school programming, athletics, etc.?! Why add an additional Senior Director position at $128,181.00*? Couldn’t one of the others 12 be repurposed or reassigned? Is adding a Senior Director of Finance to the tune of $122,482.00* really necessary with a funding cliff looming? I know that the department was “reorganized” to make this “revenue neutral” (mind you it is not truly revenue neutral) with a series of moves that both demoted and removed some positions while it raised others. I question whether this reorganization for efficiency needed to have an additional Senior Director added especially when even the lowest priced ticket items were rejected at the bargaining table as being too costly.

Superintendent McKinzie, I urge you to reject the Staffing Plan recommendation you are to receive and to spend the time needed to look at the District as a whole. The size and the cost of administration has become a runaway train.

Sincerely,