Where’s the outrage?
Two years ago, the Matawan Regional Teachers Association (MRTA), was outraged. Over two hundred teachers stormed a board of education meeting at Strathmore Elementary, wearing buttons that read “I CARE about our kids”. They picketed in front of board members’ homes and stuck placards in their car windshields when parking at the schools.
At the time, MRTA President Carl Kosmyna said "Tonight is about making a statement and about making the public aware that things are not what they seem in the district. We also want the board to see that we are standing here united."
Why was the union so outraged? Their salary guides hadn’t increased 4.5%.
Today, the school district is on the verge of terminating 73 employees. The union response? A flyer. Kosmyna’s only public comments, made literally minutes before a board vote on the budget, was a suggestion for the school board to recommend raising taxes as high as possible to avoid personnel cuts.
The union leaders are willing to beat the war drums for a raise but not to save scores of employees’ livelihoods? It doesn’t make sense unless, and this is just a theory, the union leaders were never fighting for their union. Maybe, just maybe, the union leaders were fighting for themselves. After all, even without increases to the salary guide, everybody but the highest paid teachers were still slated to receive a raise.
In 2008, the school board and MRTA ratified a memorandum calling for salary increases and retroactive pay in exchange for a change to the state health care plan, NJ Direct 10.
However, the exact language of the contract still needed to be negotiated, the biggest of which was the salary guide. The memorandum only refers to the total increase to the salary guide, not how that increase is distributed.
In an astonishing act of malfeasance, Board President Pat Demarest outsourced the writing of the salary guides to the teachers union and Joel Glastein, director of personnel. The salary guides were never reviewed by any third party or even by the school board prior to Ms. Demarest signing the contract.
While a district wants to increase salaries at the lower levels to attract the best teachers, unions want raises at the higher levels to boost pension income. With Demarest’s blessing, the union got what it wanted.
The below tables show what the union officers received from the revised salary guides. Comparing salary guides, our senior teachers earn over $3,000 more than their peers in most wealthy “I” districts in Monmouth County (p. 22), which explains the top-line’s slow growth rate – it can only grow so fast without appearing obscene.
However, the real story is the extraordinary spurt in income for those union officers that hadn’t yet reached the top rungs on the salary guides. To use an extreme example, Margaret De Be Voise, a building rep for the middle school, got a 62.30% salary increase over three years plus a five-thousand dollar check for retroactive pay. In fact, a third of union officers got about five-thousand dollars in retroactive pay.
Furthermore, among the officers, only Kathleen Vergaretti (32.35% raise) is earning below $84,000.
In other words, due to seniority, the union officers ain’t afraid of losing their jobs. Nor are they willing to sacrifice any raises to save jobs.
Let’s assume there’s $1.5 million budgeted for increases to the salary guide. The teachers could also shift to NJ Direct 15 for a 5% savings, or about $300,000. Additionally, the legislature looks likely to pass a requirement for all staff to contribute 1.5% of salary towards health benefits – another $500,000. That’s a total of $2.3 million savings. The terminations are saving the district $2.8 million. That still leaves a deficit of $500,000 but one that is far more manageable. Five more retirements could close the gap.
Absent union concessions, 73 staff members will lose their jobs and the district will begin looking for additional places to cut next year. Everybody but the most senior teachers and administrators will be at risk of losing their jobs.
Does the union leadership care? I’m guessing their membership does. Name of Employee Carl Kosmyna 80,580.00 82,330.00 85,220.00 87,080.00 8.07% C. Marshall Gorman 69,330.00 71,900.00 86,540.00 87,900.00 26.78% Patricia Mattern 82,960.00 84,650.00 87,540.00 89,400.00 7.76% Janet Breslin 82,960.00 84,650.00 87,540.00 89,400.00 7.76% Edward Kornberg 78,450.00 80,150.00 83,040.00 84,900.00 8.22% Janette Caufield 65,998.40 69,750.00 76,110.00 84,350.00 27.81% Rose Marie Turley 73,730.00 81,580.00 84,220.00 85,580.00 16.07% Margaret De Be Voise 54,160.00 61,640.00 74,700.00 87,900.00 62.30% Kathleen Vergaretti 51,560.00 54,440.00 62,070.00 68,240.00 32.35% Suzanne Serden 78,450.00 80,150.00 83,040.00 84,900.00 8.22% Barbara Lyttle 82,610.00 84,300.00 87,140.00 89,400.00 8.22% Wenona Dubrowsky 64,070.00 71,900.00 86,540.00 87,900.00 37.19% Name of Employee Carl Kosmyna 1168.00 6,500.00 C. Marshall Gorman 5120.00 18,570.00 Patricia Mattern 1168.00 6,440.00 Janet Breslin 1168.00 6,440.00 Edward Kornberg 1168.00 6,450.00 Janette Caufield 4954.49 18,351.60 Rose Marie Turley 1091.66 11,850.00 Margaret De Be Voise 5088.00 33,740.00 Kathleen Vergaretti 2104.00 16,680.00 Suzanne Serden 1168.00 6,450.00 Barbara Lyttle 1128.00 6,790.00 Wenona Dubrowsky 5120.00 23,830.00
>>> Read more!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Union Elite
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Return of the Demarest
The last time we saw Pat Demarest, she used the race card in an amateurish power play and publicly humiliated Revered Gattis of the St. Mark A.M.E. Zion Church. At the time, Zavorskas had resigned and both Demarest and Barbato declared they would not be seeking reelection. At her last board meeting, Demarest secretly invited Reverend Gattis to petition for the open seat. The non-Barza wing predictably objected to the surprise petition and insisted upon upholding the past practice of interviewing all interested candidates. Why Demarest would subject the reverend to such embarrassment or risk inflaming racial tensions is anybody’s guess.
Apparently, Demarest hasn’t learned anything because she’s playing racial politics again in a selfish bid to regain her spot on the Matawan-Aberdeen school board. Most employee grievance issues remain confidential and Demarest obviously relied upon that confidentiality in her latest gambit to win support from the African American community. Unfortunately for her, Demarest’s latest attacks against the school district have become public record.
Patricia Demarest has volunteered to testify against the school district in a grievance hearing involving the district’s senior African American, Wayne Spells. By stitching her affidavit to the school board minutes, it’s easy to see what happened and what she’s doing.
November 19th, 2007 - Shortly after Quinn’s departure, the school board voted unanimously to conduct a “Hearing and Investigation in the Terra Nova Test matter”. Every student in the district had “failed” the exam and the school board wanted to know what went wrong.
April 23rd, 2008 - Demarest is elected president of the school board at the re-organization meeting.
May 19th, 2008 – At Demarest’s first school board meeting since becoming president (i.e. her first opportunity to set the board agenda), the full board votes to “approve withholding of a salary increment for the following tenured staff member” – Employee 4496.
From Demarest’s affidavit, we now know that Employee 4496 was Wayne Spells, the Director of Special Programs, and that his increment withholding was “related to the administration of the 9th grade Terra Nova test in 2007”.
We also know that, as expected, the union filed a grievance on Mr. Spell’s behalf.
January 22nd, 2010 - I post an article about a “former school board member" who voted against Dr. O’Malley’s appointment and intended to run in the school board election.
January 29th, 2010 – One week after the blog post, Demarest files an affidavit on Mr. Spell’s behalf against the school district. Not only has she volunteered to testify against the school district, she also throws Dr. O’Malley under the bus by blaming him for failing “to inform [her] of the existence of relevant Board policies”.
So, let’s get this straight. Sitting at the table, we have a board president with five years experience on the school board, Mr. Gross, the board attorney for nearly a generation who probably wrote or reviewed every board policy, and Mr. Glastein, the former acting superintendent who’s been with the district for over 30 years, and Demarest blames O’Malley, who’s only been working full-time in the district for one month.
Are we to believe Demarest never questioned Mr. Gross or Mr. Glastein regarding procedures for withholding an increment? Maybe. After all, Demarest claimed, as board president, that she was not accountable for anything but her board votes.
Moreover, she’s a liar. As board president, Demarest was intimately familiar with Spell’s grievance filing, with his argument that the district did not comply with a particular policy, and the district’s position that that policy only applies to teachers, not administrators. Only now, over a year and a half later, after she’s decided to run for the school board, does Demarest claim she suddenly discovered this "obscure" policy and reversed position.
Does she really believe the public is so stupid to believe this? Yes, she does. That’s why she has such low expectations for our students.
So, to recap, Demarest votes against O’Malley’s appointment, then throws him under the bus when she volunteers to testify against the school district in her bid to regain African American support after she publicly humiliates Reverend Gattis. How ironic that Mr. Spell’s grievance only becomes exposed through Demarest’s efforts to undo the damage she inflicted upon herself the first time she played racial politics.
Demarest is still strongly linked to Barza. Her candidate’s petition has four signatures from the Barbato household and it will be interesting to see whether this linkage proves a boom or a bust for the Demarest campaign.
If only these were Demarest’s sole “indiscretions” but there’s more to come. Demarest has a history and she intends to make it our future. >>> Read more!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Bill My Neighbor
My esteemed colleague on the Matawan-Aberdeen School Board, Student Representative Andrew Monagle, articulated the community opposition to any program cuts – Any program that attracts student participation and has educational value should be maintained. Furthermore, all existing programs have educational value. For example, ceramics and TV production provide “career exploration”. Drivers ed satisfies a state requirement towards acquiring a driver’s permit. Golf has the educational benefits of any successful athletic program.
Since any program with student participation can find some justification, the logical outcome is - Don’t cut any student programs. Give the kids what they want and bill it to the taxpayer.
I respectfully dissent.
The critical issue is how one views taxes. Those opposed to cutting any student programs or services view taxes as the cost of living in a nice community. You want good schools, paved roads, a safe neighborhood, clean parks, etc.? Well, this is what it’s going to cost you. And, if you don’t like it, you’re free to move (as if uprooting your family, selling your house, and finding a new home were as easy as changing TV channels).
I view taxes as property seizures. I envision men with guns garnering your wages, plundering your bank account, and taking your home. Why? Because your neighbors voted to take more of your money than you could afford or ever agreed to pay.
Taxes are only a necessary evil when they support necessary expenditures. Otherwise, they’re just evil.
We’re spending over $600 for every student taking ceramics or TV production. Another $350 per student taking drivers ed. How can we justify forcing one person, under threat of losing his house, to pay for another person’s golf instruction?
How about a gun club? Citizens have the constitutional right to bear arms, gun safety is very important, and there are many occupations that require the use of firearms, such as law enforcement, security, and military. I’m also guessing it would be very popular.
Would we force our neighbors to pay for training sixteen-year-olds how to fire a rifle?
How about martial arts, scuba diving, or magic? Using student participation and “educational value” as the sole criteria, what program wouldn’t justify us picking our neighbors’ pockets?
Does this mean we’d end all electives outside of core requirements? Absolutely not. It does mean that, before confiscating our neighbors’ property, a program would have to meet a higher threshold than student popularity.
In my opinion, a program must meet four criteria to warrant taxation:
Does ceramics meet the threshold? The money is being used for the “general welfare” of the public, i.e. the students. Does the benefit outweigh the cost of $600 per student? No. Is teaching ceramics a legitimate role of government? Not when we have several other arts programs. Does the public have no reasonable alternatives? No. Students can enroll in a different arts program or study ceramics at one of the local private art schools.
How about drivers ed? I’d say yes to all but the 4th. Our district could lease space to competing driving schools and the students could pay private instructors.
How about golf? You’ve got to be kidding.
Remember this - If all school programs are sacred, then our private property is not.
Our country has a long tradition of balancing the majority’s will against the minority’s rights. Even if most of us want a ceramics class, we don’t have the right to make our neighbors pay for it. >>> Read more!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Take-Home Pay in the School District
I’m still formulating my thoughts on the budget but here’s a little nugget of some interest.
The APP maintains a database of all salaries for district employees. We all know that salaries aren’t the full story. Health benefits ($19,000 for a family plan) and pensions are the other major cost components.
However, there’s one more tidbit. Salary isn’t the same thing as take-home pay. Teachers have the opportunity to earn a bewildering array of stipends. The big ticket stipends are athletics. At the opposite end of the scale, this past Monday, the school board voted 6-3 to pay high school and middle school teachers $50 a head to attend their students’ graduations. (O’Connell, Gambino, and I dissented.)
Click here for an Excel download of the 2009 take-home pay for the Matawan-Aberdeen school district. Bear in mind, there are two flaws in the file. First, I had to compile it from a scanned document. Second, the list shows earned income, not salaries. Therefore, the incomes for those who only worked part of the year may be significantly less than their salaries.
In 2009, the top five earners were O'MALLEY RICHARD Superintendent Of Schools GLASTEIN JOEL M. Deputy Superintendent Martucci Joseph Director of Athletics/Assistant Principal RUSCAVAGE MICHELE Principal Olsen Kathleen Principal
In 2009, the top five earners among teachers were Turner Samuel Driver Education (Fall – Spring) Geran John Pre Calculus Kaye John Physical Education & Health Education Stead Thomas Principle of Chemistry BD Class Friedl James P. Principle of Lab Chemistry ICR
Among full-time teachers and administrators, 43% of staff earned over $80,000.
After teachers, the next largest category of full-time workers is secretarial at 34. They’re also the lowest paid, earning a little over $40,000 on average.
The next largest group is custodians, 31 employees at an average take-home pay of $59,026 (excluding the 3 individuals who didn’t work a full year).
Including part-timers, the district employs 49 teacher aides but only 6 earned more than $30,000 last year.
Nationwide, over half of all unionized employees work in the public sector. In other words, the primary purpose of unionization is to protect workers from the public. Between their salaries, benefits, and job security, I’m not surprised. >>> Read more!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
O’Malley’s Record
Given February’s publication of test scores across the state, now is a good time to review Dr. O’Malley’s record to date. If I neglect to cover any important topics regarding education, finance, or management, please let me know and I can edit this page to include additional topics.
Education
Dr. O’Malley’s contract states “Whereas, the Board seeks a Superintendent to meet the District’s objectives to raise student performance in order to place in the top 25% in state testing within the District Factor Group . . .” (page 2)
Of course, the contract fails to offer any metric for actually defining the “top 25% in state testing” but, for simplicity’s sake, let’s use the APP’s method to determine whether there’s been any progress towards reaching that undefined goal. The APP’s website, DataUniverse.com, displays a chart of test scores and indicates whether the district scored above or below average in its DFG (district factor group).
To give the data more meaning, let’s use the Quinn years as a baseline.
According to the APP, the following chart shows Matawan-Aberdeen’s record in surpassing the DGF average is: 2008-09 2007-08 2006-07 2005-06 2004-05 2003-04
So, after one year under Dr. O’Malley’s direction, the district did better than in any year under Mr. Quinn.
Last year, for the first time ever, all six schools made AYP (annual yearly progress) under the NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act) with significant advancements by our African American students.
Although the high school academies have yet to prove themselves, the intent is praiseworthy - to encourage students to enroll in more academic challenging courses. Presently, about 13% of 9th and 10th graders are enrolled in the academies. Most of those students would have gravitated towards challenging courses regardless of the academies and the participation rate is still far below the 19% who enroll in AP courses. Still, I'm thrilled to see us investing in our top performing students and I believe the academies will ultimately encourage more students to excel.
However, this year the school board established a new goal –
Our district, at all tested grade levels, shall rank among the top fifteen in the below group on the state assessment exams for total proficiency and advanced proficiency.
The “competing” twenty-five districts are the top K-12 districts in the DFG above ours. Manually compiling the data is a bit time consuming so we don’t have a history but here are the results for 2008-09. (Click here for the full Excel report.)3rd LAL TP 18 70 72.6 -2.60 3rd LAL AP 19 5.8 6.4 -0.60 3rd Math TP 9 87.2 85 2.20 3rd Math AP 13 43 40.6 2.40 4th LAL TP 18 69.2 72.5 -3.30 4th LAL AP 11 9.6 7.3 2.30 4th Math TP 15 80.2 80.1 0.10 4th Math AP 14 37.2 36.2 1.00 4th Sci TP 23 92.4 94.6 -2.20 4th Sci AP 18 53.6 54.2 -0.60 5th LAL TP 25 69.2 75.9 -6.70 5th LAL AP 19 9.5 11 -1.50 5th Math TP 19 82 85.3 -3.30 5th Math AP 18 35.5 38.5 -3.00 6th LAL TP 22 74.3 80.3 -6.00 6th LAL AP 18 7.9 9.1 -1.20 6th Math TP 20 75.6 79 -3.40 6th Math AP 18 27.7 28.7 -1.00 7th LAL TP 22 77.8 83.1 -5.30 7th LAL AP 23 20.7 24.1 -3.40 7th Math TP 17 74.2 75.2 -1.00 7th Math AP 9 34.2 27.7 6.50 8th LAL TP 18 89.2 89.8 -0.60 8th LAL AP 19 11.7 13.1 -1.40 8th Math TP 9 83.2 80.5 2.70 8th Math AP 8 41.8 37.8 4.00 8th Sci TP 16 91.2 91.4 -0.20 8th Sci AP 25 27.6 38.3 -10.70 11th LAL TP 21 86.9 91.4 -4.50 11th LAL AP 21 10.4 14.7 -4.30 11th Math TP 24 73.1 82.1 -9.00 11th Math AP 26 16 27 -11.00
By this measure, our district only has a 25% success rate. It will be interesting to see how well Matawan-Aberdeen does by this measure in the upcoming years.
Most troubling are the HSPA scores. They’re dismal. Dr. O’Malley has implemented writing programs and an accelerated math curriculum (in total, 60 new curricula have been written) but for our current high school students the only remedy is to force any student with insufficient math or English skills into elective programs that develop those skills. The high school should not be waiting for students to fail the HSPA before taking action.
Finance
Last year, Dr. O’Malley was one of the only superintendents in the state to cut spending below the prior year’s budget. Yes, Quinn’s budgets were inflated but so are many other districts. That only a handful of superintendents reduced spending is a mark of distinction for Dr. O’Malley.
With Ms. Irons, we also had a virtually unblemished financial audit. The board has also been made aware of previously “hidden” expenses, allowing us the discretion of whether to support certain programs or not.
All of the schools' cafeterias have been upgraded without any cost to the taxpayers or price increases to the students. Enrollment is up and our profit is six times the guaranteed level.
The administration has also successfully reduced the cost for subscription busing.
The tougher problem is finding alternative sources of revenue. Grants are a problem because they generally only fund new spending and, when the grants disappear or costs rise, you’re then left with an unfunded program, as we were with RTI.
The obvious places are new programs that attract students, such as special ed programs. Others include before-after school programs, adult education programs, and district-teacher ventures. Whether any of these will be developed remains an open question.
Director of Special Ed
Since Mr. Schweitzer’s appointment, we’ve been able to negotiate every request for an out-district placement and avoid the huge legal bills and some of the pricier placements. We’ve also reduced out-district placements by 10%, including one out-district placement that returned to the district at a savings of $100,000 per year.
Mr. Schweitzer has implemented 5 new in-district programs. Hopefully, we'll begin attracting out-district students and generate some desperately needed revenue.
School Board Attorney
At $160 per hour, our board attorney, Mr. Rubin, charges about 20% more than our prior attorney. Yet, our legal costs have dropped by half.2006-07 $105,561.70 2007-08 $261,950.80 2008-09 $168,340.50 2009-10 (mid-year) $38,958.46
Security
When we eliminated our Director of Security, I said I would resign my seat if the level of crime rose above the Quinn period. At January’s BOE meeting, I asked if crime had increased since we terminated the position. The answer was no.
Quinn created the position at the beginning of the 2005-06 school year. As can be seen from the chart, creating the position did not reduce the level of reported crime. (There are allegations the numbers during the Quinn year were underreported.) Yet, Dr. O’Malley cut reported criminal activity by one-third in his first year.2004-05 43 2005-06 41 2006-07 51 2007-08 41 2008-09 27
At the time we eliminated the position, there were stories of the director saving the district money by ascertaining that some students were not actual residents. However, I have been unable to substantiate these reports.
Director of Technology
There’s a scheduled tech expo for Wednesday, February 24th and we’re scheduling a meeting of the tech committee. I’ll come back to this after those events.
Strathmore Principal
Moving Ms. Bera from Cliffwood to Strathmore was controversial at the time but I’ve not heard any complaints since beginning of the school year. We’re still waiting to see the impact of the move. >>> Read more!
