Ron Littlepage, lost again

In Ron Littlepage’s column about the state potentially withholding funds if some of our schools don’t improve, I can tell you right where he lost me. It’s when he wrote, “But we now have a strong School Board and a strong superintendent in place who are putting extra effort into improving these schools.” Mr. Littlepage exactly what school board and superintendent are you talking about?

This school board and superintendent, instead of following the law which I agree is draconian and instead of addressing the real problem, kids getting to high school unable to read and do math at grade level, without the skills they need to succeed, came up with some half baked plan to cut the schools in half creating two theme schools that would share the same campuses. And you are surprised the state said no thanks?

That proposal was not extra effort, instead it was crazy and a common definition of crazy is to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Well friends we have been waiting for over a decade for 1701 Prudential Drive to fix those schools. The superintendent by the way was there every day and several members of the school board have been there for years and not one of there quick fixes have worked. They reason is they stubbornly refuse to address the real issues those schools have and because of that nothing has changed.

Mr. Littlepage, I don’t want the schools closed or taken over, but we have real problems which need real solutions and if you, the school board and the superintendent aren’t going to part of that it’s time you got out of the way and let somebody else try. That in case you are still lost is all the state is saying.

Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher

If Ron Littlepage loves the superintendant so much he should marry him

I really don’t understand why Ron Littlepage of the Times Union keeps giving Ed Pratt Dannals the school superintendent a pass. This time Littlepage celebrates him because he turned down 20k in car and cell phone allowances, something he probably could have afforded anyways with his 275k salary (total compensation 08-98, 339k according to the Action News web-site). Three years ago when he was appointed he received over a hundred thousand dollar raise from his previous salary. He probably does not need a raise as he makes almost as much as the superintendents of Clay and St. Johns County combined and a hundred thousand dollars more than the mayor.

Do you think we are getting an adequate return on our plus 300 thousand dollar a year investment? If so, is it the poor graduation rate, the high drop out rate or the fact less than half our high school kids read at grade level, or maybe it’s the lack of discipline or the poor teacher moral that you think warrants it?

Ron Littlepage should chip in too

Ron Littlepage, just back from a week long vacation at the beach, thinks it’s reasonable in these troubling financial times that public employees take a two percent pay cut. Teachers however, should just loose their raises; after all they buy school supplies for other peoples’ children. Though I guess if you can afford a week at the beach, these times might not be so troubling for some.

Littlepage also doesn’t think, teachers should take the move by the school board to break the contract as anti-teacher. Instead it’s just tough financial times, financial times by the way that have seen the school board hire a public relations person, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants and travel, buy a million dollars worth of new cars, spend millions on the Shultz center, have a middle management, people by the way who on average are paid more than teachers and who don’t work directly with children, that is so big it could dam a medium sized river and start capital projects that are costing tens of millions of dollars. In these troubling financial times, it seems like the school board has money for everything, everything but teachers that is. Teachers by the way who this year will also be absorbing more of their medical costs than ever before. A friend of mine with two children has seen her health insurance payout raise by sixty-one dollars a paycheck. Which is a lot more than any raise she would have gotten.

To give you an idea of how big the raises are; a second year teacher would receive an extra 127 dollars over the course of the year. That’s a six dollar and thirty cent a paycheck raise, or three dollars and fifteen cents a week. I could figure that up by hour if you wanted me to.

I get it though, times are tough and everybody should chip in and sacrifice some. The problem as I see it, is it’s always teachers that are sacrificing and they are expected to do so in both good times and bad. At what point do we draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough?

Finally Ron thanks for thinking school teachers are underpaid and even though I don’t remember seeing any editorials from you calling for an increase in teacher’s salaries when times were good, I do appreciate that you have at least noticed. I was wondering however if you wouldn’t mind kicking in two percent of your salary, I promise I will spend it on school supplies. What do you think; I mean we are all in this together right?

Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher