School superintendent responds to KNS editorial

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2007/08/09 - 5:43am

Knox County Schools Superintendent Roy Mullins responds to yesterday's KNS editorial that demeaned Knox County Teachers and criticized a plan to enhance their retirement benefits.

Mullins says "I take exception to the opinion expressed in the editorial" that is "clearly written from a position of ignorance concerning the Knox County school system’s budget, and it misrepresents an initiative that is designed to help keep certified teachers in our classrooms every day and in our school system for a career."

It also sounds like a page from the GOP playbook -- constant attacks on teacher's unions and public education to promote private school vouchers for rich kids instead of making public schools better for everyone.

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Odd that they'd criticize

Submitted by Bbeanster on Thu, 2007/08/09 - 9:30am.

Odd that they'd criticize teachers for a relatively modest pension upgrade when they never said a mumbling word about former police chief Phil Keith walking out the door with a lump sum of more than $200,000 (I forget the exact number) under the "DROP" (deferred retirement) plan.

Double-post

Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Thu, 2007/08/09 - 9:52am.

Well, please forgive my double-post on this subject, but I feel pretty strongly about it!

The comment below was the last one on yesterday's thread, and no one really chimed in to agree or disagree with me. Truly, isn't this the context in which we should consider teacher pay and benefits? Below...

Still inadequate
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 3:11pm.
"Well, leave it to the beancounter, here, to ponder that $100 per day times 5 days per week times 52 weeks per year equals just $26,000 annually.

WRT leave time, every employer I ever worked for had some kind of "use 'em or lose 'em" policy in place, but all allowed a certain (capped) number of leave days to be rolled over into a new calendar year. Come termination or retirement, though, these accrued days were ALWAYS PAID OUT AT THE EMPLOYEE'S PAY RATE IN EXISTENCE AT THE TIME OF TERMINATION OR RETIREMENT.

Since no teacher either terminating or retiring from teaching is earning just $26,000 annually, I wondered why teachers would settle for only $100 per day, much less $20!

It appears to me, then, that both the old and the new policy "charge" teachers with paying for their own substitutes! In what other industry does that happen!

And contrary to the N-S position that a policy change of this sort "would do little or nothing for education," people who haven't pored over the specifics of the BEP funding formula should be aware that teacher salary and benefits are considered in that formula as direct "classroom costs." Rightly so.

Until the day society ceases to value a 21 year-old chemical engineer at $51,000 annually and a 21 year-old mathematics teacher at $31,000 annually, we should lend our support for whatever manner of teacher pay increase presents itself."

It's been my experience that

Submitted by KC on Thu, 2007/08/09 - 10:25am.

It's been my experience that teachers who don't use sick days are there because they love their jobs and the kids. They feel like it's their duty to be there to instruct the kids, and that sense of duty, in today's world of education, should be rewarded.

If Knox Co. wants to retain teachers who love their jobs, then paying them more than $20 for unused sick days is the right thing to do and a good start.

So a teacher can start at 21

Submitted by SammySkull on Thu, 2007/08/09 - 4:30pm.

So a teacher can start at 21 years old making $31,000 dollars and complain that's not enough? How many of their students come from families that don't make that?

Unsung heroines

Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Thu, 2007/08/09 - 8:35pm.

A few years ago, one of my children had an excellent elementary teacher with a masters +45 and 13 years teaching experience in a neighboring school system (and who would say "Excuse me?" repeatedly until her students spoke to her using correct grammar, "please," and "thank you"--I loved it).

She confided to me that her starting salary with KCS in that, her first year in Knox County, had been $30,000/year. She stayed with KCS that one year only, and left the profession.

KCS has since begun recognizing for compensation purposes teachers' years of service earned in other school districts. It was a long time coming, though, as was that 25 minutes for lunch they now get, just since about 1995.

Some people point to teachers' "summers off," but if you're a parent, you know how that break is shrinking with each successive school calendar (note that school started this year today, August 9). Teachers return to class a week or two earlier, of course, and continue to work beyond the time kids' school year ends.

Through the school year, they work well beyond eight hours daily.

Every school in Knox County opens at 7:10 am, including middle and high schools in which classes begin at 8:30, and teachers must be there first. In elementary schools, teachers rotate duties attending the bus loading docks, the car riders lines, and the crossings used by "walkers," both before and after school, and some monitor the "bus room" in the mornings. In middle and high schools, teachers sponsor numerous clubs and organizations and offer study sessions, before and after school both. Those club sponsors often give their time on weekends, too.

They're at parent orientation sessions, open houses, and PTA programs evenings and they're often gracious enough to schedule parent conferences before or after school, or occassionally on those 25 minute "lunch hours."

They undertake paper-grading *every* night and many still share thier home phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses with families (my elementary-aged child's teacher last year told me she spent one hour nightly speaking with parents of the 120 5th graders who rotated through her classroom each day).

There is a reason young children think that their teachers live a their school.