The following letter was sent from Harford County Education Association (HCEA) President Ryan Burbey to all Harford County representatives in the Maryland General Assembly. A copy was provided to The Dagger for publication:
As President of the Harford County Education Association, I must express our opposition to SB 595 & HB 486, The Public Charter School Expansion and Improvement Act of 2015. As evidenced in Governor Hogan’s proposed budget, state funding for education is increasingly limited. These funding limitations should guide policy decisions. Therefore the primary reason for our opposition is that SB 595 & HB 486 have the potential to divert state tax and local dollars away from current public schools and public programs without local approval. These bills also serve to override and countermand local authority over education policy.
Specifically, these bills would (1) allow the Maryland State Board of Education to override decisions of locally elected boards of education to authorize establishment public charters schools within local school systems (2) require local boards of education to provide equal funding to these schools based on enrollment (3) override local authority and the authority of local superintendents by requiring substantial restructuring of local school systems’ human resources and administrative departments (4) dilute and diminish funds available for capital improvements and construction within local school systems by allowing MSDE to serve as administrator of school construction programs for charter schools. As we struggle to maintain excellence in Harford County Public Schools, we cannot fathom support for legislation which would make balancing the school budget in future years even more difficult by necessitating the creation of additional administrative departments, and reducing both operational, as well as, capital funds available to our current schools. SB 595 & HB 486 have the potential to divert millions in future tax dollars from the general fund, education trust and school construction funds.
Over the past several years, state funding for public education in Harford County has been repeatedly cut. As state funds for education become increasingly scarce, it simply makes no sense to divert or dilute valuable state funds to our current pubic schools. The Harford County Board of Education faces substantial challenges in funding the current education program and 54 schools within Harford County. By allowing the Maryland State Board of Education to override decisions of locally elected boards of education to authorize establishment public charters, this bill creates the potential for massive budget deficits which will undoubtedly result in increased class sizes within “regular” public schools and/or programmatic cuts, which will reduce opportunities for students rather than increase them as the bill purports. Quite frankly, Harford County Public Schools, being ranked 21st out 24 Maryland school systems in total per pupil funding, can barely afford the current schools it operates; much less fund any additional charters authorized outside of local control by the Maryland State Board of Education. Even more austere conditions arise with regard to capital improvements school maintenance and school construction. Harford County Public Schools has multiple buildings, which require substantial improvements or reconstruction. Neither the local school system nor county government can fund increased maintenance and improvements forced by establishment of charter schools within Harford County.
Perhaps the most disturbing component of this legislation is that it derides local authority over education on many levels. Only recently, Harford County citizens voted to elect our Board of Education. This is the first time that the majority of our Board of Education has been duly elected by the voters of Harford County. Passage of these bills as written, would essentially strip our Board of Education and other local boards of education from their authority to govern education policy within the county. As previously mentioned, these bills force local boards of education to fund, build and staff charter schools over which they maintain little to no control. Even more disturbing is that local boards of education may, in fact, deny establishment of charter schools, only to then have their thoughtful decisions overridden by members of the Maryland State Board of Education, who hold little or no ties to our local community and have no accountability to local voters.
Maryland’s current charter school law is successful. It strikes the right balance between local control, school accountability, and innovative instruction. It allows for the establishment of charters but rightly requires local authorization by locally elected boards of education. Likewise, the current charter law empowers local boards of education to monitor both academic and fiscal accountability of charters. The current Maryland charter law prevents fraud and abuse, which have occurred in states with less strict local control. Lax charter laws in other states have led to financial mismanagement, low standards, poor performance, and unreliable learning environments.
All citizens of Harford County should be alarmed at the implications of SB 595 & HB 486, The Public Charter School Expansion and Improvement Act of 2015. If passed as written, this legislation has the potential to strip local control of our schools from the citizens of Harford County, as well as, quite literally bankrupt the Harford County Board of Education operational and capital budgets. I encourage all Harford County voters to email their elected representatives, expressing their opposition to this potentially disastrous legislation.
Ryan Burbey, HCEA President
Mr. Burbey:
As a former HCPS teacher with over ten years public school experience, I must wholeheartedly disagree with your sentiments regarding charter schools. Maryland’s current charter school law is most definitely NOT successful. If it was, Maryland would not be ranked last among the 42 states that permit charter schools. Charter schools should be about putting the students first. Public school is not, despite what everyone in the industry says. Public school is about putting the structure first. It is about attempting to quantify what cannot be quantified and use that as justification for more rigid administration and bureaucracy. The current charter school law does not allow for innovation or experimentation. It does not allow for thinking outside the box, nor does it allow for reprioritizing the system. It only allows for the continuation of the public school belief that education is a product for comsumption. It is not. Education is about people, not product.
As a leader of teachers, you should be for anything that breaks the ivory tower, central administration stranglehold on education, but you clearly are not. You want to maintain the status quo, because the status quo benefits teachers. It does not, however, benefit students, and it doesn’t benefit innovation and growth in teachers either. Proper charter schools offer a viable alternative to public and private schools, and both establishments should feel challenged by good charter schools. If you are confident in the system as it is, then you should have no problem allowing changes that make it easier to establish charter schools and keep them operational.
Why did you leave HCPS?
Primarily, too much politics, too much administrivia, not enough teaching, not enough support from administration and above.
But you loved the pay right??? These Charter schools will dilute the little $$$ Harco has for education.
Because paying a charter school teacher, who can be fired on the spot for poor performance or impropriety or showing up to work hungover (or still a little drunk from the night before) or for failing a drug test, is so much more despicable than paying a HCPS teacher?
As long as the kid can write and recite their times tables, does it matter who does the teaching as long as the parents are happy with their child’s progress?
Brilliant absolutely brilliant!
Concerned Teacher has got this right!
Fellow HARCO Teachers. It’s time to abandon ship. We are getting no respect so it’s time to move on. Nothing will change. All other MD Counties have figured it out and their teachers are getting steps and COLAs. So either our county admins are less intelligent than theirs, or they have made their minds up to save $$$ by reducing educational funding. Something needs to be done before the start of next school year. These past years have been a slap in the face of all teachers.
Why are you taking the time trying to convince all other HCPS teachers to “abandon ship”? If you feel that strongly, then move on! Lead by example! It surely must be easier for a teacher to leave the school system than for the school system to “leave” a teacher, thanks to the unions.
Buh, bye….
….they don’t need a whole lot of convincing. Plenty of them are leaving on their own.
Less talk, more action. Don’t forget to write.
More action…look at the numbers of teachers who left last year, and it will be more this summer based on the number of teachers I know have already applied to leave. I personally have already contacted neighboring counties about transfering so don’t tell me about action. I’m just waiting for the right fit and opening. There has to be positions open first before transfering out of HARCO.
And “Buh Bye”…? Are you a 10 year old girl????
Where in the heck is the big long letter decrying the academic abuses of Common Core and the related PARCC assessments? There are teachers all over this country speaking out on behalf of their students and the academic abuses as related to Common Core. What about the obscene amount of tax money, which has been wasted on Common Core, the PARCC assessments, and all the new technological equipment necessary, all in the name of PARCC? Maybe Common Core and the fiscal waste it involves should trouble you more than charter schools.
With the shape the schools are in now it’s probably a good thing.
People need to face reality, the culture/reality is that anyone born after 1980 just aint going to stick around being a school teacher for their entire career.
Isn’t this “union” guy banned from majority of HCPS property anyway? LOL
Thumb me down all you want, but teaching isn’t like what it was +40 years ago. Times have changed.
Starry eyed college grads with $60,000 debt chase the bloated, well paid office job.
Making less than $50,000 a year to deal with crappy students, crappy parents, crappy supervisors isn’t what many want to do anymore, combined with the fact that generation is filled with the “all about me” and whiney types.
Considering the climate of other things that spill into the job, like the increasing rate of drug addiction in middle class suburban kids. Who wants to deal with that?
I think charter schools are the epitome of local control. If you don’t like how your child is being educated, you can enroll them in a different school, and the schools that are poorly managed or perform below expectations close.
Charter schools can do things public schools can’t dream of, like requiring parental involvement, and making it a condition of employment that teachers be available to assist with homework or parental questions after the buses have left.
If charter schools were given the chance to succeed, the taxpayers might realize that the current system is a joke and that changes must be made. That is why Mr Burbey is so scared of them.
You have hit the nail on the head, Kharn. What the public school system can not tolerate is competition. If parents had the right to choose, with a level playing field, public schools would slowly die out and the publicly funded monopoly would cease to exist. Ford doesn’t build a good product out of moral ground, they do it because if their product is inferior we can go to GM, or VW, or Honda and so forth. A good charter school system, without the local machine’s bad influence, is exactly what we need.
The problem with your statement is that charter schools and public school WILL NOT be playing on a level field. Charter schools will not have to accept students with disabilities. Public schools must educate ALL students, regardless of ability, disability, motivation, or attendance.
And if the goal is educational success of each child, why should the needs of special ed students drag down the chance for success of average or gifted children? Let the kids go where they can thrive rather than requiring everyone share the same classroom.
Not all children learn at the same rate, or in the same way, we should group them together as best we can so that the teacher isn’t distracted trying to teach the same lesson at three different levels and in four different ways.
A robust charter school program, with selective admission, accomplishes that goal, while the public schools are still able to meet the legal obligations towards the disabled.
The issue is not the selective admission as much as it is that his bill calls for charter schools to get the average per pupil cost. That $9K number you see. The problem is the kids they take are the ones who only cost 3-4K to educate and the number is pulled up by the 100K student. If we give charter schools the 9K number we will still be left with Johnny 100K and even less money to educate Jane than the charter school kids.
Additionally Mr. Burbey is not saying he is opposed to reform but mostly opposed to the removal of local control and accountability.
His bill is similar to the regulations in Wisconson. A state where 1 in 3 charter schools fail. MD has fewer schools but a much higher success rate among those schools. The charter schools we do have are great schools for the most part i.e. KIPP etc.
Then maybe HCPS should release more detailed accounting than just a single per-student average? For example, the cost of the average K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 students without IEPs, and a separate list for the average cost of IEP students in those age groups.
They do….it is called the budget. No one really read or understands the number for non-public placement. Or they see it is 2 million dollars but they don’t read that it is for 20 kids and does not include providing transportation to the city everyday! They don’t realize the special educators in the teacher count have a case of of kids who get most of their attention. Or even that a group of 8 kids in a middle school has 2 teachers, 3 para educators and a behavioral specialist and occupies a lot of time with the school psychologist! Or the cost of maintaining the few buses the county owns and driving door to door for them. We haven’t even gotten to the Autistic program or John Archer etc. Special Ed is expensive!
Not true – charter schools are widely used in the country not just for g&t programs but specifically for disabled children, which is why Obama is a fan. It’s a crying shame that in Harford, someone’s best choice for their child is driving to Kennedy kreiger in the city every day.
And the Democratic National Platform supports charter schools as a healthy option too.
So who’s really against them? The unions, who lose their forced membership numbers, and the politicians, who are paid by the unions.
You do realize that Charter schools are publiclly funded. You will still have to pay taxes to fund them. In fact you will pay more to fund them and the ones that fail!
You putzes. The bill would require counties to fund these charter schools at the same rate that they fund public schools? Where will those funds come from? The county can’t fully fund education now, much less with new charter schools to fund.
Unless they raise your taxes, which you local yocals can’t even dream of. Read a bill and understand ramifications before you spew idiocy. Except for Kharn, we know he’s an idiot. He gets a free pass.
Harco – Finally someone with more than half a brain on this site who isn’t hooked up to a Kool-Aid IV and/or has their head stuck up some political party’s @ss. 100% agree.
“Where will those funds come from?”
Most other places the funds come from the school that the student would have normally attended. No additional monies are required for the Charter School.
My granddaughter attends a Charter School in another state. That is also how they handle funding in the state which she resides.
So you still have the cost of maintaining the old schools physical plant as it will not close and a principal etc. Plus the new Charter school will have a new cost of a principal and a new physical plant that previously was not required.
Cdev:
Aberdeen and Edgewood HS don’t seem to have a problem segregating their magnet students from the general population, why couldn’t a charter school run inside an elementary or middle school?
The could if you can find a building with enough unused space. Baltimore City did this although a couple of the Charter schools didn’t pay their utility bills or take care of the building. That said You can’t garuntee such space exists in buildings that have easily divided space.
Plus those buildings got specifically built for those purposes. If you try to take an old building not built to be divided and put a charter school in it they will still have a considerable amount of sharing and mixing like cafeterias gyms etc! The one charter school this county had went into the CEO building. It only had room for a small group of kids and it failed at its mission.
No, you take an existing school in Harford that’s only at 60% capacity now, and make it your charter school. You’re not necessarily adding more physical buildings.
Does such a building exist?
I want to personally thank all of the hard-working and wonderfully passionate HCPS teachers who teach because they love to teach.
Nice words about teachers? You are on the wrong site. This site hates public school teachers. Kharn wants them beheaded.
Not beheaded.
I want them held responsible for the product they provide to the community.
Good! Last year, HCPS graduates received over 60 million dollars in college scholarships. Let’s find all the teachers who had a hand in their education and hold them accountable by giving them the raise.
Some are passionate, others (refer to my 1980s comment) just come here for a job and move on to another school system that pays more or some other career field. Its an endless cycle, you move on to get paid better in another county where those people you replaced moved on to get paid better somewhere else.
Didn’t the cyber security teacher that just get hired at Harford tech, just quit? This person was #1 pick out of all the applicants, right?
I have to say that my hat is off to the many good teachers who do their job because they believe in their mission. It obviously is not for the bucks. Today’s teachers are faced with tremendous obstacles. When I was a child the teacher or administrator could bust your ass if you acted out. Not anymore. When I played football and wrestled if your grades dropped below a C you were off the team. Not anymore. Now, to be politically correct, you can play sports or be involved in other activities even with E’s. If you can’t pass the mandatory competency tests for graduation you can do a project. What a joke! Someone has made a mockery of the education system. A teacher needs to acquire a Maters Degree in 10 years or they are kicked out. A 20 year county employee with a Masters Degree struggling to make 50K and having to eat all of the crap being thrown at them. Sad! Very Sad! I wouldn’t blame them if they all jumped ship. For the once who have stuck it out THANKS!!!
When you where in school the standards to graduate where much lower!
Its not like kids fail and don’t graduate. Whether or not a student takes advantage and makes something of themselves is another story.
I really like when inclement weather occurs and parents get frantic about keeping their kids home and fear of being sent home a bluff letter about unexcused absence/failing. Really? That faux letter isn’t worth the paper its printed on.
Talk to school office personnel and ask them how often they see grade changing paperwork.
Ask the parent who finds out Johnny didn’t graduate because he failed a class his 5th year in school!
No, they were much higher.
It used to be that 11 days of suspension was an automatic failure for the entire year. MD changed suspensions from unexcused to excused absences, so now the kids just sit at home playing Call of Duty all day and make up the missed work as if nothing happened.
Actually, Cdev, the standards were quite high when I graduated. Of course back then the the teachers weren’t unionized either. When you “WHERE” in school there were no standards.
Not sure of your age but how many math credits were required for you to graduate? How many Science Credits? How many total credits? Any testing requirements? What about service learning?
You do know MSTA has existed since 1865?
Sorry, CDev, I gotta disagree with you on this one. I graduated from a Harford County school in the early 80s. When I was in high school, we had six classes per day, every day. That meant we could only earn a maximum of 24 credits in four years. IIRC, it was mandatory that 4 English, 3 math, 3 1/2 social studies, 3 science, 1 PE, and 2 foreign language credits were among them. Each of my credits came with about 33% more classroom time than today’s credits do, so I learned more stuff and was better prepared for college than my HCPS students were. My graduation standards were higher than today’s standards, but the ones I was held to are currently unenforceable. In my day (and I would presume yours as well), if you didn’t learn anything, or you acted like a jackass, you failed. No debate, no fourth chances. Currently, teachers are poked, prodded, cajoled, and basically forced to do everything but take the HSAs for the students and pass everyone who shows up to school more than 2/3ds of the time under the threat of poor evaluations.
When a student is suspended these days its more or less to punish the parents. Most kids will just “chill out” on their day(s) off while the parents lose time from work, and whatever else to cater.
Come on man, this is politically correct, race to the top, no student left behind, can’t have bad PR public schooling. Students don’t really “fail.” There are so many ways they push the slacking cattle out the gate, regardless.
…until parents started demanding, even suing for their kids to pass and graduate. Do you really believe that passing kids even though they are failing was the teacher’s idea?
Explain to me how a Harford Tech trade teacher was best picked person to employ, and then, the same year quit?
What’s going on here with retention? It tells me applicants either aren’t being honest, and/or the people involved in the hiring process just can’t make a proper selection
My friend teaches at Tech and told me that not only did the cyber security teacher quit but so did an English teacher. Apparently the English teacher quit because of the workload and all the common core stuff. The cyber security teacher wasn’t the ‘best’ hire – they couldn’t get anyone with the qualifications to take the job for the amount of money they offered-the pay is higher in private industry. So now the music teacher is teaching the class and taking classes to get certified. Any bets on how long before he makes the jump to industry for more money?
Yes, that cyber security was the “best hire” during that job title’s employmemt openimg. People are rated #1, #2, #3, etc.
If #1 says no, they go to #2. The “best hire” out of those in the applicant pool considering for the job.
I’m not talking about your personal opinion on who the “best hire” could be, I’m talking reality, how they do things and move forward.
You are obviously inept. The school wouldn’t have hired anybody if they didn’t believe they could not provide the education for the course with the applicants background.
Its of your personal opinion “they can’t get anyone” when they obviously did get someone.
I asked the question of being dishonest and major internal problems with the hiring methods?
If the best pick applicant quit, that means the person obviously bullshitted the best to get the job? Or does that mean there are clueless people doing the hiring? I bet the other people who applied wouldn’t have left as early.
Or…..it could be that she had a better job offer than the mere $41k she got paid as a first year teacher to deal with all of the endless paperwork that now comes with the job, which wasn’t advertised as part of the job description when the person was hired.
Is this what we really want for our children? Lowest bid contractors? The average joe with no or little science knowledge to come in off the streets who needs a job to teach students high school physics or chemistry?
When are we going to pay teachers for their worth?
189 days, 7 hrs/day per terms of the teachers contract works out to $31.00/hr. That’s better than most degrees rookies and I assure you includes more generous benefits.
@Money Tree
If they had a job like most folks working 2080 hours on an annual basis that pay would amount to $64,467, a very good salary for someone who is a first year employee.
How many teachers do we have in the system who are making $64,467 a year and only working the 189 days? That would work out to $48.72 an hour plus benefits.
First off it is 190 days and 7.5 hours. That is assuming you can get all the job responsibilities in in that time. I know few good teachers that can and even crappy ones can’t with the bad job they do.
“Really???” I’m not commenting on the current climate of teacher salary and work load.
I’m dealing with reality, its 2015, if you don’t know what you’re getting into, you’re either naive, stupid or both.
The information about Harford schools is out there, thar person still applied, got hired and quit. You would think someone teaching an IT subject would use a computer to get internet opinions such as yours, and factual information.
That IS what a number of people on here want: to pay the lowest possible dollar amount, and to see the system fail. Which is why in their formula paying more money is never a factor in getting better people to teach. They want neither.
@MoneyTree: This has been brought to your attention before, but I will bring it up again. In my 15 or so years of teaching, I have NEVER seen a teacher work only contract hours. It is impossible for even the laziest and poorest teacher to go through a school year and not work after hours at school, before hours at school, or at home. You have clearly been anti-teacher for as long as I have been reading this website, so I expect nothing more from you. I just feel I have to say this to lessen the chances that some uninformed person honestly trying to understand the situation will be influenced by your biased drivel.
TheMoneyTree just lost all credibility with that ignorant comment. You are a complete moron if you think teachers “work” 7 hours a day. And teacher benefits are getting “changed” in the future too. I left 2 years ago when I saw the writing on the wall that Harco could care less about it’s teachers and would rather build new buildings with 100 flat screen TVs and I make about 35% more than I made teaching. And we have plenty of vacation time in “the real world” and nice “working lunches” too. I miss working with the kids, but at some point, you have to move on when the respect is not there.
Word is out about HCPS and it’s not good. I don’t live in Harco anymore, but neighboring counties are laughing at them in terms of education. It won’t get fixed until they honor the teaching pay increases.
My comment is based upon what we know are the contractural expectations. Teachers are not teaching in the summer but most other professions are – you can’t complain about a starting salary for someone in the classroom w no experience and a simple bachelors degree – the masters can be acquired later and I believe those coats are also subsidized by the taxpayer. When put in the proper perspective $41k isn’t so bad. Not saying teachers are dumb, or don’t work or aren’t loaded w crap that has very little to do w teaching but the salaries really aren’t that bad.
“When put in the proper perspective $41k isn’t so bad.”…Your opinion and I would love to know where you live if the major $$$ earner in a family makes 41,000. And the problem is it’s not just the starting salary in Harco. now teachers who have 5 & 6 years experience are still making that great 41,000 as they are stuck on step one.
Compare starting salaries with other companies/jobs to teachers in HARCO…where both workers only have a bachelors degree. It’s not even close.
And don’t even talk about the contract & expectations. In order to meet the teaching expectations, you HAVE to work more than the contracted hours. And teachers tried to “work the contract”, they got ridiculed for it. So I guess harco teachers just can’t win.
Is 41 K still ok after 6 years on the job? That is reality. Pay has not kept pace with inflation over the last 10 years!
Being stuck at the same level year after year is a different matter. Wouldn’t blame anybody for being unhappy about that. The original comment was about rookie salary not that same salary a decade later. Personally I’d rather see the good teachers get raises and leave the non-performers static – that’s the way it works in the private sector and we wouldn’t need to increase the pie to supply raises to the deserving.
Take a look at Baltimore City. Under your scenario of paying the better teachers more (something their union agreed to) the cost has gone up significantly and is a major factor in their school system being 60 million in the hole this year.
@nobody
That is because 95% of the teachers in Baltimore are far above the average and deserve every penny of the better compensation. Right? 🙂
Gosh why is my intuition that Baltimore City ought not be used as an example of anything done well.
Money Tree – I rarely ever agree on anything within your posts, however I do agree about your pay observation. Every school has the “cashing a paycheck” teachers. These teachers deserve no raise. Every school also has the teachers who stay later, write college recommendation letters, provide timely feedback to students and parents, and keep the bar high within their classrooms in order to promote student learning. These teachers need raises and should have them.
We don’t need a test to find out who these teachers are. Every district knows who they are. Ask any parent, former student, and even administrator and they can tell you who he good ones are.
I left HCPS to teach in Cecil County two years ago. Not only was a given a nice bump in pay because they counted my years of service and placed me on the proper step, they also gave me day-for-day credit for my accumulated sick leave. The most interesting part was the lady at human resources told me that they thank Harford County every day for training teachers and spending the resources to develop new teachers, only to have teachers flee within a few years. The sad state of HCPS is truly humorous. But as long as the county is happy with mediocrity, they will reap what they sow.
That’s the problem, people with a chip on their shoulder. Cecil County HR laughing at Harford County School’s making spiteful remarks?
Enjoy your teaching job up in Cecil County with all the pill poppers.
Right….cause there are no drug problems in Harco. *moron*
Why call me a moron? I never proclaimed in my comments there wasn’t any drug problems in Harford.
We don’t need the likes of you and your ilk with your “all about me” attitude and your self assuming, self satisfying nature teaching our children.
Next you’re going to tell me how much more money you make? Great! Go stroke yourself inbthet mirror, scumbag.
The problem is people with a chip on their shoulders? Maybe the problem is what it is that’s CAUSING them to have the chip to begin with. Not getting a pay increase in 7 years, not getting step increases that your counterparts in surrounding counties received, having it costing you thousands and thousands of dollars in salary is probably going to cause a chip on most people’s shoulder.
Then people on here say “if you don’t like it, leave”. Well, here’s someone who did just that and are expressing their gratitude for having received such advice, so what are you angry about? You want them to leave, and when they do and are happier for it, you get irate with them!
As far as spiteful remarks from Cecil County…they don’t sound spiteful to me at all. In fact, they sound quite appreciative!
And by the way, your comment very much insinuated that dealing with drug problems would be an issue with his new job, unlike his job here.
Since you don’t need the likes of him teaching your kids…well, you ought to feel great! Because he won’t be. But he was obviously a good enough teacher for at least two counties to want him to work for them.
I wonder if he’s an English teacher, and I wonder if he teachers his students to proofread before they publish.
You’re wasting your time getting butt hurt, potato chip. Please, come back, and type another multi paragraph waste of your time.
Please, “tell me how it is” I really care. Ahh, hyuck, yuck, hyuck.
It’s good that you left. I don’t want anyone who doesn’t know the difference between ‘could care less’ and ‘couldn’t care less’ teaching our children.
The previous comment is directed at HaveTaught.
A gramatical error (from a post at 11:00pm) is what you take out of my message? SMH. Do you work for HCPS or HARCO? You just showed us all what the problem really is. Everyone in Harford County likes to focus on everything other than teachers and what is being done to them. You are like all the other lemmings around here. Typical.
Not sure what you do for a living, but whatever it is, I don’t want anyone doing the work you do who doesn’t know the difference between an apostrophe and quotation marks.
The previous comment is directed at Phil Dirt.
I make $475,000 a year, that’s after taxes.
Why did I tell you this? No idea. Its the internet.
It is correct as written, given the font used for this site. You must have skipped the day they went over single quotation marks in class – or did you have HaveTaught for English?
What do I do for a living? I work hard and pay taxes. I hope you can say the same.
Given the font used for this site? Yes, I have to admit, you are the first person I’ve ever heard claim that whether you use single or double quotation marks depends on the font.
So relieved to hear that you work hard for a living and pay taxes. I was concerned that might not be the case.
Teachers need to stop being compared to hourly employees – they are salaried. They do not have to request, nor will not be penalized for working overtime. That being said, I’m willing to bet most teachers, if not all ‘Effective’ teachers, work more than 7.5 hours/day. Those that do are either ‘working the rule’ or ‘working the system’ and they do not make up the majority. If teachers “clocked-in and out” like most other professions and the public could see, most would be surprised at the amount of “overtime” teachers put in. Whether they are grading papers at home or even checking their e-mails, it would be evident that most teachers work outside the required time-frame in a given school day.
Additionally, it should be noted that coaches that coach year-round work an additional 2-3 hours a day, for approximately $4,000/yr. So that would mean a first-year teacher (or 6-yr for that matter) that has a Bachelor’s would be working 50-hour weeks at approximately $44K-$45K – hardly competitive in today’s Professional job market.
Who gets 4,000 for coaching?????? More like 2 grand.
I apologize if I wasn’t clear. If they were to coach 3 sports, hypothetically, it would be about $4k, and work 50-55 hour weeks easily all school year.
Which is why teachers should stop coaching and supervising extracurricular activities! They could make a hell of a lot more money working a part-time job and put in fewer hours. This would also likely eliminate many teams and activities, forcing the BOE to consider reprioritizing its budget to honor the salary scale in the negotiated agreement so that teachers do not have to work part-time jobs to make enough money to pay their bills.
Glad you guys are discussing the finer points of quotations and apostrophes’* (I am pretty sure I a bit silly). Guess next would be the proper use of a parentheses’* (pun or no pun intended. “Could or couldn’t care less”. What is more important to the taxpayer or education advocates is at opposite ends of the argument. Surely both can probably find common ground but the kids are just the victims between one who won’t pay a dime more and one who won’t look at providing a more efficient process.
I’m a current teacher, non union but I still have to pay a few hundred a year. Imagine that?
What would you like to know? First of all, I’m all about me. I started interest in a subject field/being an educator and now it’s transformed into me, moving to FL to a non teaching job with 5x increase in salary. Yes, 5 TIMES. Wait? What?
Cheaper real estate, no state income tax. Wait? What?
Of course, “not all eggs” are in 1 basket with my relocation. I have backup plans just in case, but it doesn’t involve working as a teacher anymore. Wait?? What?
I’m just riding out the remainder of my time in this A-hole culture of a state, gaining what public speaking/educator experience I have left to put into my portfolio.
So YES, I’m gonna’ get myself over. I don’t give a F about YOU, don’t give a F about my supervisors and co workers, don’t really give a F about this job, either.
I’m sure with your winning attitude, you’ll go far. Enjoy being homeless in a year.
Oh, is this comment for me? I certainly do have a winning ‘tude. No doubt about that. Sarcasm? Likely.
Making less than 50,000 grand a year to over 200,000? Why do you think I’m going to be homeless?
Sounds like your jealous? Yeah. You just can’t STAND someone doing better than another? Mmmhmmm.
You should see what $350,000 dollars buys you for land/property elsewhere in the United States, it will blow your mind. Hint: its not a crappy built chain developer house on a 1/8th acre.
Yeah, buddy, I told you I’m getting myself over. Aren’t we all? Whos the sucker? Making shit pay and dealing with this, or making the “big bucks” and dealing with something else.
I’ll be sippin’ Martinis at sunset, ass in sand watching the Atlantic in tropical humidity while all those people who work at HCPS will be rowing the boat to make a lowsy dollar.
HCPS employees-
Based on my minimal research, Microsoft Office 365 costs about a hundred dollars a year per subscription. The county probably gets some kind of deal as an organization but who knows.
There are approximately 4,000 people employed by HCPS.
If my math is correct, that’s $400,000 a year, 2 million over 5 years, not including any extra costs.
Why, ummm… why?? To make things easier? I’m good now, keep your easier, and give me my long-deserved steps!