First, I want to say, the state does public education and DCPS no favors. In fact, it often seems they are working to undermine public education. That being said, time and time again, when placed in a hole, the district's sole inclination appears to be to keep digging. Two years ago, DCPS raised starting salaries by nearly 6k, and are teacher shortage is worse than ever; one would think Greene would understand it's not all about pay, but nope, either she doesn't or she doesn't care.
To mitigate the staffing crisis, DCPS seems to be employing two strategies, raising class sizes and involuntarily transferring people through the surplus process. Both strategies will join just raising starting salary as failures exacerbating staffing issues.
Two years ago, when DeSantis proposed his payroll scheme, which robbed Peter, veteran teachers to pay Paul new teachers, I practically begged the super and SB to go on the offensive and to explain to people how detrimental this was going to be and either they didn't think t would be or like with so many other important education issues they chose to be silent.
Now I want to beg the super and SB to rethink this strategy which I believe will be devastating. The district cannot yoke teachers and work them insane amounts, and it can't force them to leave schools they chose to be at to go to schools they didn't. Sure, many teachers will sigh and go along, beaten by the system, but how many will leave? How many can we afford to let leave?
I have been told our openings are closer to 700 than the 400 number they mention in the media, but we are approaching a tipping point with either number.
The district thinks that if they just throw money at the problem, the problem will magically go away, but if the past is prologue, we see the negative effects that just raising starting salary had, we should understand by now that money is not the only problem that needs to be addressed.
Making teachers unhappy and giving teachers even more work is a losing strategy. If Greene doesn't get that, it's time to get rid of Greene.
I know money for teachers isn't everything but it certainly doesn't hurt. Compared to the sales tax referendum of a few years ago next month's property tax referendum sales push has been deathly quiet. I'm not sure if this is by design or not. Lenny Curry would not even comment on it at his budget unveiling last week. (He wanted to talk about his proposed property tax cut.) During covid Lenny campaigned arm in arm with Greene for his charter school donors to get their cut. What if any marketing has the district done to sell voters on next month's referendum? I've only seen voter registration deadline info on school marquees. It's like they're just going through the motions.
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