A Day in Oz

A Day in Oz

The Roanoke County School Board met today at their annual school board retreat. In past years, the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors would join them and open, frank discussions would take place over the issues facing the county and the school system. This year, the supervisors chose not to attend, much to our loss.

The retreat took place at the spacious and comfortable confines of the Roanoke County Schools central office boardroom on Cove Road from 8 am until 4pm with a 20-minute break for lunch. Water and Chik-fil-a nuggets and wraps were provided for the staff and board members. Certainly, no one can possibly accuse them of misusing taxpayer’s money on this retreat!

I also attended the session along with our Uniserv Director, Pat Wood. Together, we also played the role of “The Public” at the meeting. Few formal decisions were made at this meeting; instead, the purpose of the meeting was to take stock of where our school system is now and what we hope to pursue in the near and long-term future. To that end, the discussions were detailed, rich, and lively. Many of the discussions will bear fruit in policies adopted at future school board meetings, so I won’t report on them here and now.

As many of you know, the Roanoke County School Board was shuffled in the last election with Fuzzy Minnix and David Wymer being elected to the body. Today was their first opportunity for an intense and prolonged policy discussion. At the risk of heaping overwhelming praise on them, I would like to let readers here know that I was impressed with them today. Jerry Canada, chairman, has a breadth of historical knowledge which is key for keeping a group on course. Drew Barrineau, vice-chair, is an astute observer of county politics especially regarding the Board of Supervisors. He also has a keen eye for organizing a budget. Mike Stovall, besides having a depth of historical knowledge, has the unique ability to gather all of the ideas on the table and synthesize them. David Wymer possesses a strong understanding of the inner-workings of educational programs and internal budgets. Fuzzy Minnix brings a fresh perspective from the general public and a wealth of experience as a former supervisor. This board knows what they are doing, and that’s an important thing for the continued strength of our school system.

Those who know me, know that I don’t suck up to people. So my praise of the board is genuine. I’m sure that as time passes, there will be issues where our organization will disagree with decisions made and policies created by the board; however, I feel strongly that this board has the interests of the whole system in mind.

From the meeting today, several things are clear. I’m going to address them in list form with my perceptions, understandings, and opinions attached.

1. The state legislative season is jumbled even more than it has been in recent years. The General Assembly is split ideologically and politically. There is a real possibility of continued acrimony and gridlock. That does not serve our public school children or public school employees well. Despite that, there is a real opportunity for a significant increase of state monies this year, despite the turmoil and despite the soured economy. It seems that Roanoke is poorer so our composite index score is lower. This should bring us more dollars from the state via their funding formal for local schools. On top of that, the state has re-benchmarked their Standards of Quality. These two factors, even if the legislature doesn’t add any additional money for teacher salaries, means that the county will receive a nice increase in state funding for the next budget year.

2. It looks like the board is committed to providing a substantial increase in salary for classified employees (secretaries, building supervisors, nutrition specialists, and instructional assistants). While it may take two or more years to accomplish the goal of making these categories the regional leaders, this board seemed resolute in making that happen. While the RCEA has not taken a position on that, I personally applaud that move. We represent about 35 teaching assistants and all of the teachers in our organization work closely with these people daily. Their dedication and loyalty should be rewarded. They deserve our support and the board’s support in raising their wage to a more respectable level.

3. Teacher pay was like the big gorilla hiding out in the open in the room. It wasn’t discussed, but it was always in the background. The RCPS Salary Committee will meet on February 14 to hash out the official committee position. Hopefully, the committee will come into agreement with the RCEA’s salary position: Multi-year approach to improve salaries to the best in the region (more on that later).

4. A decision was made on the laptop initiative. I’ll hold off commenting on that until the central office staff has the opportunity to discuss release that information. I will say that the board has provided a clear direction on how technology will be integrated into the entire system.

Many more topics were discussed at the meeting. Ideas were thick and fast. All told, it was a great meeting.

Virginia Tech beat Boston College 81-73 today!!!!!!!

On another note, our members are very concerned about teacher salaries. I’ve heard from many of you. Many of you are upset that the Governor did not include money for the state’s share of salary raises for teachers in the first year of the biennial budget. I’m upset about that, too. Governor Kaine professed to be “The Education Candidate,” and he is coming dangerously close to joining recent governors Gilmore, Allen, and Wilder in the book of non-supporters. Here are some points to consider. Again another list.

1 VEA may still be able to persuade the General Assembly to amend the budget. Then it will be up to us to persuade the Governor to accept the amendment.

2 No matter what the state does for salaries, the salary war will be fought at the Board of Supervisor level. Will they pass along the increased state funds to the schools? We will have to persuade them.

3 I’ve heard those neutral on salary increases for teachers state that you really shouldn’t have to improve salaries to the National Average because that’s a “moving target” that can never be hit (Wouldn’t it be nice to hit the target for a change instead of continually missing?). Instead, they say that our state should compare itself to salaries in our region. They also proclaim that we shouldn’t necessarily be paid at or above the state average, because Northern Virginia skews that average, and the cost of living is much less here. Finally, they matter-of-factly state that teacher salaries in Roanoke County should only be compared to other systems in the region. So I’ve been thinking about all of that…

…and now a list in response to number 3

A. National Average-Moving Target: Okay, let’s play their game. Twenty years ago, Virginia was a leader in salaries for our region (VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, TN, KY, WV, MD, DL). By 2004-05, the state had slipped to 5^th in that group. In recent figures just released by NEA for last school year, Virginia had fallen to 6^th on that list. Looks like the target IS moving…away.

B. The State of Northern Virginia: In the latest national salary rankings, Virginia is ranked 31^st in the country. If we were to allow the state of NOVA to succeed from us, the average salaries for the remaining school districts would drop to 46^th in the country. I suppose that Virginia would no longer be the 7^th wealthiest state either, but we certainly wouldn’t be the fourth poorest either.

C. Systems in the Region: As we’ve pointed out in recent blog entries, the unquestioned leader in teacher salaries in the area is Salem, a school system born from Roanoke County Schools about 30 years ago. Roanoke County surely would be second on that list, right? Wrong. We come in, generally, fourth or fifth in the region behind Roanoke City, Botetourt, Franklin County, and sometimes Craig County at various points on the teacher pay scale.

Why don’t teachers in Roanoke County have top pay in the region? I’m not one to tie test performance to pay, because we all know that there are many factors that affect whether or not a school makes AYP. But if I was that kind of person , a strong argument could be made in favor of rewarding pay for RCPS teachers.

So I guess the point of this little exercise is that a group can excuse, deflect, and deny the fact that teachers are underpaid, but no matter how the facts are twisted, teacher pay scales in Virginia and Roanoke County are, to adopt a word made famous by Tom Hanks in the movie- “The Terminal,” unacceptable.

A Message From VEA

VEA President Princess Moss has sent VEA members a special video message regarding our salary initiative and how to affect change. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first video message ever for VEA. We live in amazing times.

Presidential Address
http://www2.nea.org/mediafiles/PrincessVideo_Rev.wmv


The response to our petition and letter writing drive has been excellent so far. If you haven't done so, please sign the VEA petition and write a letter to your legislator. If you've already done so, thank you! Please feel free to leave your comments here regarding the salary issue (you can be anonymous or use your name). You can also email Thom Ryder (newt999@gmail.com) and let him know how you feel about our salary efforts, the state effort, or anything else.

Figuring It All Out

Figuring It All Out

Back on December 14 of last year, The Roanoke Times ran an editorial entitled, “Figuring Out Fair pay For Teachers.” I remember reading that piece and just shaking my head and wondering exactly what reality the editorial writer lives in. I decided to remain mum on that editorial and let my anger and disgust settle.

Since that time, several things have happened on the teacher salary front. VEA initiated their statewide campaign for teacher salary improvement and the Governor included no funding for teacher salaries for the first year of his proposed biennial budget. In response, VEA has launched a petition drive to rally support for teacher salary improvements.

In addition to the talk of salaries, our local school board has initiated the budget process which you can read about here on this blog. We are pleased to stand shoulder to shoulder with our school board, superintendent, and central office staff in fighting for increased funding for teacher salaries and benefits.

The fight, however, will not be easy. My experience tells me that in good financial times, the state begins repairing the infrastructure. For schools that may mean fronting money for capital construction projects. Teacher salaries are usually a secondary consideration. During stressful financial times, teacher salary concerns usually get pushed further back along the funding chain. The net effect is that over the last seven years, teachers in my school division have generally lost between 3 and 14% in buying power thanks to the powerful ravages of inflation.

One main point that The Roanoke Times was trying to make in their editorial back in December is that we shouldn’t be comparing our teacher salaries to national teacher salaries. Instead, we should look to see how our teachers compare with other teachers in the region. Luckily, just this past week, VEA published its annual “Salary Schedules for Teachers.” In that document, you can do exactly what the RT suggests. So below, you will find bulleted information relating to how Roanoke County teacher salaries compare with their regional and state colleagues. For each category, I’ll share the ranking of each locality listed below with the rest of the state. I’ll include other data as it is warranted.

Roanoke County

Roanoke City

Salem City

Botetourt County

Bedford County

Franklin County

Floyd County

Montgomery County (Bulletin: Asking for 8% salary increase for 2008-2009)

Craig County

· Career earnings for teachers with 30 years experience (2007-2008 Scales)

Roanoke County	77	$1,390,233
Roanoke City	62	1,412,650
Salem City	28	1,524,035
Botetourt County	42	1,480,728
Bedford County	101	1,314,813
Franklin County	44	1,466,950
Floyd County	117	1,277,683
Montgomery County	95	1,344,905
Craig County	86	1,365,161

· BA Benchmark Salaries By Locality 2007-2008

Roanoke County
Min	85	34,500
5 years	74
10 years	71
15 years	79
20 years	84
25 years	46
30 years	68	53,285
Roanoke City
Min	80	34,859
5 years	91
10 years	89
15 years	78
20 years	38
25 years	61
30 years	59	53,928
Salem City
Min	12	39,600
5 years	22
10 years	42
15 years	40
20 years	42
25 years	54
30 years	20	61,185
Botetourt County
Min	87	34,430
5 years	56
10 years	32
15 years	28
20 years	29
25 years	60
30 years	77	52,646
Bedford County
Min	103	33,412
5 years	101
10 years	99
15 years	95
20 years	96
25 years	108
30 years	107	50,110
Franklin County
Min	108	33,000
5 years	103
10 years	80
15 years	10
20 years	22
25 years	48
30 years	82	52,325
Floyd County
Min	90	34,000
5 years	110
10 years	122
15 years	125
20 years	117
25 years	112
30 years	104	50,316
Montgomery County
Min	126	30,968
5 years	107
10 years	93
15 years	89
20 years	86
25 years	84
30 years	96	51,361
Craig County
Min	116	32,065
5 years	97
10 years	76
15 years	74
20 years	60
25 years	67
30 years	48	55,219

· MA Benchmark Salaries by Locality 2007-2008

Roanoke County
Min	98	36,105
5 years	82
10 years	77
15 years	81
20 years	83
25 years	53
30 years	68	55,560
Roanoke City
Min	97	36,159
5 years	105
10 years	102
15 years	87
20 years	49
25 years	60
30 years	64	56,028
Salem City
Min	9	43,005
5 years	19
10 years	35
15 years	35
20 years	37
25 years	44
30 years	18	64,590
Botetourt County
Min	79	37,030
5 years	52
10 years	33
15 years	27
20 years	29
25 years	56
30 years	74	55,246
Bedford County
Min	110	35,083
5 years	110
10 years	108
15 years	99
20 years	98
25 years	103
30 years	103	52,616
Franklin County
Min	105	35,500
5 years	98
10 years	78
15 years	12
20 years	22
25 years	49
30 years	77	55,075
Floyd County
Min	89	36,500
5 years	108
10 years	119
15 years	123
20 years	114
25 years	112
30 years	101	52,816
Montgomery County
Min	124	32,968
5 years	112
10 years	97
15 years	91
20 years	86
25 years	88
30 years	100	53,361
Craig County
Min	121	33,565
5 years	109
10 years	86
15 years	80
20 years	68
25 years	76
30 years	54	56,719

I remember a time when Roanoke County was ranked in the top 30 across the board. It’s also interesting to compare our salaries with Salem. For those who don’t remember, Salem City Schools were born from Roanoke County Schools in the mid 1970’s. It’s interesting to see the direction teacher salaries have gone in each school division.

Make no mistake that our school board is doing a good job trying to win higher salaries for teachers. However, in the county, the board of supervisors hold the purse strings. That coupled with the state sometimes not funding their share of a decent cost of living salary raise puts our locality further and further behind on salaries.

There is more information packed into the VEA research report. I’ll bring that to you in a later blog. Remember to sign the petition and write you legislators!

Daily General Assembly Report

Rob Jones and our very own Doris Boitnott put together these reports during the General Assembly season. Their reports are detailed and fascinating. You must become a regular reader.

Just the Facts

As most of you know, the Governor did not include any money for teacher salary raises in the first year of the biennial budget. VEA petitioned the Governor to include money for the state share of a 5% raise for next year. However, the Governor included no money. The RCEA has proposed a salary scale adjustment equal to roughly 1% salary money along with a 4% across the board raise for next year then a 5% across the board raise for each of the following two school years.

VEA has compiled some facts and information on salaries for you to consider and to use in discussing salaries with your non-teaching friends and legislators. I've added a few comments relating to our locality. My comments are red.

Just the Facts

• Virginia teachers in 2006-07 earned $44,727—far below the national average salary of $50,816. Virginia teacher pay in 2006-07 ranked 31^st , down from 28^th in 2005-06. While we don't have a precise teacher salary average for RCPS, you can rest assured it is significantly less that the state average. I would estimate that the average teacher salary in Roanoke County is about $10,000+ less than the national average.

• The gap between Virginia teacher salaries and the national average has almost doubled from about $3,111 in 2002-03 to $6,089 in 2006-07. Roanoke County teacher salaries are generally between third and fourth in the area. At some steps on the scale, our salaries ranked as low as sixth out of eight school division in the area. Salem, Botetourt, Franklin County, Roanoke City, and in some cases Craig County pay more than Roanoke County at different steps along the scale.
  

Step			Current RCS Salary Schedule 2007-2008	Rank
0			34,500	3rd
5			36,717	3rd
10			38,292	4th
15			41,867	5th
20			45,000	6th
25			52,389	1st
30			53,285	4th
35			54,404	3rd

• Virginia’s rank on teacher pay is falling among Southern states and the nation as a whole. Among the 16 states comprising the Southern Regional Education Board, Virginia teacher salaries ranked 7^th, behind Maryland ($56,927), Delaware ($54,680), Georgia ($49,905), North Carolina ($46,410), Florida ($45,308), and Texas ($44,897). As recently as 2004, Virginia ranked 4^th among SREB states.

• The Virginia Education Association is calling for a 5% increase in each of the next two years to move the Virginia average teacher salary closer to the national average

• In constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars, Virginia teacher salaries actually declined 2 percent from 1995-96 to 2005-06. Nationally, salaries gained 1.5 percent over that time. Inflation for the Virginia region has been at or above 3.5% since 2004, and most steps on the RCPS teacher scale (other than from steps 8-14 and 24-32) have lost purchasing power over the last seven year ranging between about 3 and 14% .
  

2005	3.6
2006	3.4
2007	3.5 est Inflation

• The proposed state budget includes no funds to help school divisions increase salaries for next year (2008-09). It does include funds to support a 3.5% increase for teachers and a 3% for certain school support professionals in the second year, 2009-10.

Be sure to visit the VEA website to become a Cyber Lobbyist.

Remember to sign the VEA petition and to write your local legislators. Depending on exactly where you live in the area, you may be represented by delegates Morgan Griffith, William Fralin, or Onzlee Ware. On the state senate side, Senators John Edwards and Ralph Smith represent people in the immediate Roanoke Valley.

It Ain't Peanuts

It Ain’t Peanuts

Crafting a school budget is a painstaking process that easily lasts six months. Generally, the period from January through March is the time when the most intense budget action takes place. This year is no exception. In fact, the action this year is more intense than ever.

The budget process that Roanoke County Schools continue to evolve is increasingly open and inclusive. In recent years, Penny Hodge, Assistant Superintendent of Finance along with her staff have made a point to keep employees informed of the process through timely employee news memos posted on our First Class email system. David Atkins, Budget Assistant, has created a fine Budget space on the county web site.

New for the 2008-2009 budget season was the invitation to all county employees to present their budget needs before the school board. Employees and school groups were invited to develop specific budget proposals and submit them in advance to Mrs. Hodge. Proposals presented were intended for new budget impact items only. Many individuals, groups like RCEA, and internal central office departments took the time to assess their needs and submitted detailed proposals for the school board to consider.

Proposals were due in mid-December and each person or group was given the opportunity to speak before the board regarding their proposal at a special budget session on January 2. That meeting was an amazing example of transparent government.

If you open the link (warning: this is a large pdf file and takes a while to load), you will discover that there were 56 separate requests for new money in the 2008-2009 school budget. The RCEA took the prize for submitting the largest proposal. I suppose that’s understandable since we proposed a scale adjustment to bring the middle steps on the scale closer to the mid point of salary on the scale* as well as a 4% across the board salary increase for teachers. The total estimated impact for our proposal is about $3.1 million new dollars. All told, there were requests for $7,043,138 in new projects and support.

At the January 10 school board meeting, the board entered into another budget session. In this session, the school board reviewed the proposals and recommendations of the Central Office staff regarding those proposals. Each item was addressed again and a central office staff member was called to speak to the central office recommendation. Of the 56 original proposals, alternate source funding was found for 12 of them. In some cases these alternate sources were found using current discretionary funds ($175,000 for formative assessment program/$50,000 for data analysis program, market adjustment for middle and high school assistant principals). In other cases, creative staffing was suggested to achieve the intent of the original proposals (testing coordinators in high schools).

The remaining 44 items were prioritized. Some, like an additional HVAC technician and roof replacements among others, were considered “Must Do” items. Some, like a new email system and a new social worker, were determined by staff to be “Should Do” items. A Math specialist and 2 gifted resource teachers were placed on the “Like to Do” list along with new art and health teacher positions for elementary. Several pay issues were directed to the “Market Adjustment Pay Plan.” Money for bus drivers, building operators, bookkeepers, and instructional assistants will all be processed through that plan. More research by us will need to be done to determine exactly what this “Market Adjustment Pay Plan” category is. The RCEA salary proposal was sent to the RCPS salary committee for review and action. The salary committee will meet on February 14 and the RCEA has several representatives on it along with representatives from the school board and other county employee classifications. 18 items did not make the cut and were not recommended. Those items totaled about $1 million. Most of those needs were addressed in some other manner and very few were rejected completely.

The school board will meet again on Saturday, January 26 for a budget retreat at the central office building and again on January 31 for their next regular meeting. That meeting will have a public hearing on the budget. The RCEA will observe these and all other future school board budget meetings. We, most likely, will speak to our proposal at the January 31 meeting.

Without a doubt, the open, transparent budget process the school board has adopted is refreshing. However, several looming potential kinks in the budget process could derail the positive effort.

One of the quirks of our local governmental system is that we have elected school boards with absolutely no revenue/tax authority. This body must present their budget to the county board of supervisors for approval. Interestingly, the elected county board of supervisors has absolutely no legal authority to dictate to the elected school board how they will spend approved funds. That being said, the board of supervisors can and routinely does simply direct the school board to revisit their proposal and trim a certain percentage from it.

Our current board of supervisors has changed somewhat. Richard Flora, ex-school central office staff member and the Craig County Administrator, has taken the Chairman position on the board of supervisors. Charlotte Moore was elected to replace the retiring Mike Wray. She joins Flora, Mike Altizer, Joe McNamara, and Butch Church on the board.

The RCEA was hoping that the board of supervisors would attend the school board retreat on Saturday, January 26 to discuss the school budget, but we’ve heard they will not attend. That’s a disappointment. In our opinion, the more the school board and board of supervisors have the opportunity to share information regarding budgets and schools, the more transparent and strong our local government becomes.

The other potential impediment to implementing our budget proposal is the eventual state budget being crafted now in Richmond. In the original proposal put forth by Governor Tim Kaine, no money for teacher salaries was included in the first year of the budget. Usually when the Governor includes teacher pay in the budget, he puts in money for the state share** of an x% raise. With no money in the state budget for a teacher salary increase for the 2008-2009 school year, the onus of providing any raise will fall squarely back on the localities…unless VEA can affect an amendment to that budget. There is some hope that can happen. Back in December, the Roanoke County School Board met with area legislators. At that meeting , Delegate Griffith-currently the Speaker of the House and arguably the most powerful legislator in the General Assembly- told the group that he supports teachers but not a state salary raise. He did offer, however, his efforts to scratch together $100 or $200 for teachers. Obviously, we need to do better than that.

On the positive side, the Governor’s budget includes money to address the re-benchmarking of the Standards of Quality (SOQ). The SOQ’s are legal code that form the basis for state support for local funding. The SOQ’s define what programs and positions the state will support. In past years, Roanoke County, along with most other localities, has found the need to go above and beyond the staffing minimums prescribed in the SOQ’s. Each time a locality does that, they do it using 100% non-state funds. Every few years, the Virginia JLARC (Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission) takes a look at the state formula and adjusts it. The most recent review was particularly fruitful and there were many funding enhancements in the SOQ’s. If the legislators maintain the JLARC recommendations in the budget, the overall state education budget will increase by about 7.5%.

In addition, the state uses a sliding scale called a composite index to determine the actual dollars that will flow to a locality. That scale has also been adjusted and Roanoke County’s composite score has dropped (meaning we are relatively poorer). Mrs. Hodge anticipates receiving more state money because of that.

In each of these two cases, we need to work to make sure that any new monies coming to the county for the benefit of schools actually get appropriated to the schools. What we don’t want to see is the supervisors erasing money from one pot while money from the state pot is added. We must remain vigilant and engaged in the process. More on what we must do will be posted in the next edition of the RCEA blog.

* Currently, a teacher must work over 20 years to get to the mid point on the teacher salary scale.

** State share is usually about 35% of the cost based on a complex formula that no humans understand.