Here's wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas day and may 2008 be a rich and successful year for your and your family!
Tim
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About Me
- Tim for Schools
- Lakeland, FL, United States
- EDUCATION: I am currently the Vice-Chair and serving my fourth year on the School Board of Polk County (FL). A native of Greenville, SC, I relocated to Polk County in 1972 to attend college. I taught in Polk County (FL) public schools from 1975 until 1994, working afterwards as a contract administrator and teacher resource specialist for the school district. Prior to beginning my service as a board member I designed and conducted annual follow-up surveys of Polk County public school graduates from 1998 - 2006. BUSINESS: I own a real estate sign installation service known as Sign PostMan, LLC. Sign PostMan installs signs from Plant City to Haines City and points beyond. I also have experience in dealing with growth issues as a result of many years of residential property management and service on local planning and zoning boards, as well as experience in both the academic and career (vocational) education arenas. COMMUNITY: I am also a member of the Board of Directors of MIDFLORIDA Credit Union, AMIkids Polk, and a member of the Kiwanis Club of Lakeland. Previously I served on the board of Lakeland Regional Medical Center.
2 comments:
Tim,
There is not enough time in the current school day to achieve all of the goals of the school board. This is a complaint that I am sure you are well versed with. However, I will say it again. As long as teachers know that they can leave at a certain time they have and will continue to sacrifice their students instructional time as quality in order to see that papers are graded, grades are recorded, plans are submitted, plans are made, conferences are scheduled, conferences are kept, parents are called with discipline problems, trainings are held, duties are done etc... before the end of the contractual school day. Because, who in their right mind wants to stay longer at work then they have to. This is America, this is the mentality of every worker here unless you are someone who has personally set out to make a difference in the world then those people do it out of a sense of charity and goodwill. Schools cannot expect that the intrinsic value of helping a child learn will be a motivator enough to sacrifice being able to provide for their families. When will schools nationwide wake up to the fact that the system is broken, it is stuck in a broken cycle that will never be fixed until teachers are treated and paid for the WORK that they do. If you paid teachers 50-60K a year you could require that they stay until 5:00. If teachers felt they were compensated for the work they did you would see in increase in quality instruction and quality planning. You would then never have a problem retaining teachers and could even be WAY more selective once you have the surplus. The job itself even becomes more competitive. Right now there is nothing to lose and the county is not in any position to have any kind of bargaining chip. The only thing that keeps teachers around now is the fact that so many of them don't feel they can walk away from the retirement benefits. But that fear doesn't result in any desire to do to better work. It only results in the reluctant perpetuation of mediocrity. Pay increase will also attract more men back into the profession once they see that you can actually raise a family on this salary and their wives won't have to work. Many of these wives would still want to work which would give us a much large pool of people to pull from for para positions and administrative assistants. So many of our highly skilled teachers leave the classroom because of the burdens of the amount of work. And they wind up down in Bartow working for the county in support and administrative positions. Not because the jobs are what they have always dreamed of but because they are easier and less stressful than the classroom. Why do we want our kids to be doctors and lawyers? Because of the prestige that comes with the position or because they will be well taken care of? I think that money elevates the status of a job within the eyes of the community. I think their would be fewer discipline problems if teachers were more highly thought of in the community. You want to turn F schools into A schools or do you just want to make AYP? Do what you know is right. Increases in pay result in increases in productivity. you want teachers to do their best in their jobs, make their jobs ones that they don't want to run out of the building as soon as they can every night. The school board has the power, this is America. Money should never be an issue here. In America people want a job with advancement this doesn't work in the education system because there is no room for advancement, only the meager raise we all look forward to each year. Middle school teachers should be at the top of the starting and ending pay scale...however still under administration. There's no reason why the guy who drives around checking air conditioning settings should be making more than a starting middle school teacher at Crystal Lake. We can't call all positions equal. A teacher in elementary is not the same as in high school or middle school and certainly not at a magnet school. We need to admit that certain positions require way more work than others and make sure that the people who do them are compensated for their work beyond what is "competitive pay" to borrow contractual language. A teacher in the midwest makes as much as we do here. Why? There is a surplus of teachers up their, their school boards are in a position to keep pay lower because their jobs can be filled. Here it is not the case, there aren't enough workers because no one who makes the rules is really willing to make a run at something that hasn't been tried yet. Everything that is being done has been tried before it is just going full circle again. Break the mold, if Polk county started paying more every county would have to follow because they would lose alot of staff to us, then the rest of the US would have to follow because they would be losing jobs to Florida. I dare you to start the trend.
You make some valid and interesting points. I would like to talk with you. Please contact me directly.
Tim
tmharris@tampabay.rr.com
863-808-0005
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