Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Teacher Raises Afoot?

Optimistic on School’s Chief Hiring Practice:

We teachers have all been sacrificing lately for the good of students and the financial solvency of SCUSD. I have an SCUSD-tested plan, however, to help us improve our financial and working condition, especially in light of the SCTA-generated concessions to our District. Here’s what we do.

Apply to the SCUSD school board to use the title, “Chief”, in front of our employee classification. For example, I would take over the moniker, Chief 6th Grade G.A.T.E. Teacher of Phoebe Hearst (it’s better to use capital letters…more credibility). You can immediately see how much more grandeur it gives a lowly teacher. But there are a host of reasons why we all should use the title, Chief:

*It improves student discipline. We all understand the importance of students deferring to classroom authority. Quiet kids make for productive kids.

*Classroom learning is enhanced. Studies show that totally compliant children make marked gains on standardized tests, the only true reliable test of student achievement.

*Teacher appearance necessarily will approach some higher standard. Let’s face it, a Chief Anything can’t come to school to improve learning for students in, say, jeans and sneakers!?! I’m a proponent of the bowtie, for example. You all must have lots of ideas on how we can dress ourselves more properly. Let’s do mandatory in-service on how to enrich a school community by what Chief Teachers wear. If only we could enlist some administrative help with teacher wardrobes.

*Parent-teacher conferences will go more smoothly and there will be more of them as well. No parent is going to dare skip the chance to talk to a “Chief” Teacher, and those pesky questions about student progress will be a thing of the past.

But this is the best news. We’ll all get huge raises. I don’t know how the Superintendent does it, but it’ll happen. He’s so confident that he replaced the Chief Financial Officer of SCUSD with a Chief Communications Officer. The financial predicament we face must not be all that bad, I guess! Maybe we’ll all just talk our way through the mess. I’m all for it anyway; it’s way easier than doing math and stuff.

So that’s one chief at $100,000 plus per year. His Chief of Staff? Again up into the six figures. The new proposed Chief of Family and Parent Engagement is expected to cost a bundle. We don’t exactly know how much the new Chief of Accountability will make, but the District spent $52,000 for a North Carolina outfit (none available in our state, I guess) to study accountability for us, so you know it’s going to cost a lot to hire someone to oversee how students, and eventually teachers are doing. Gotta be in the $100,000 plus range, though. All totaled SCUSD boasts seven new chiefs and counting. Heck, Mr. Raymond is spending thousands of dollars just to move secretaries, I hear. So any of you certificated people out there that know some secretaries, let them know about what we can do for them, too. Let’s spread the wealth!

So my plan then, placing a capital Chief in front of our lowly titles, will automatically generate an average salary increase of $42,000 per year, roughly $1 for every student we serve--- if you look at finances the way our District does. And don’t worry about the school board; they’ve approved every Chief thrown at them. Besides, the Sacramento Bee hasn’t questioned the impropriety of any of our Chief’s Chiefs. It’s all on the up and up. You see, friends, we’re golden; we can’t lose.

So let’s start applying then. The District is apparently long on dollars, longer on Chiefs. The only thing we may be in short supply of is common sense. But we can solve that with a new position…..Chief of Better Judgment. Of course, we’ll have to run that by the SCUSD Communications Department for fiscal soundness.


Erik Knudson
Applying for Chief Random Article Writer status as the Need Arises