Stop Screwing Over Hockey!

We ran into this issue here in Wonderland...Sun Prairie USA.
But the problem is a global one.
Oh....you want to know what the problem is?
It's that kids playing hockey get screwed all over this state...and probably nationwide.

What the majority of districts tend to do...and perhaps more so for smaller districts with less revenue, is that they gouge kids playing hockey by raising the athletic fee for hockey (or assessing a surcharge).
What Athletics Director Jim McClowry TRIED to do (we think) was to show that many other schools set their hockey fees so much higher (5 to 10 times) than the average per sport athletic fee. And therefore Sun Prairie should too.  Of course he was also trying to fund additional soccer teams.

We are transforming hockey into an elitist sport.  Only those with lost of money can afford to play.  A kid gets to play baseball or football for about $50-100 (rough average)  but for hockey, the cost can be anywhere from $0 to well over $1,000.  Why?  This is already a costly sport in that things like skates and sticks can get quite pricey.  And if your kid wants to be a goalie...good luck...those pads can cost a fortune.  Sure, football kids need cleats...but skates are far more expensive...and need frequent sharpening.

The fickle fingers of blame will always point to ice time as the culprit.  And that's true...ice time is expensive. But at the same time, we're not operating on a level playing field.


The cost of ice time
Yes, Virginia, ice time is fairly expensive.  For Sun Prairie, the cot of ice time for the Boys Hockey program for 2012-1 was projected to be a little more than $22,000. Yeah...that will cause a few folks to whistle.  Hang on...

What about the cost of other fields/facilities?
....before you get too crazy, ask what it costs to maintain Ashley Field for a year.   Ashley Field is used for...what...8 football games per year plus a few times by soccer, lacrosse, and maybe Sound of Sun Prairie.  Estimates of annual maintenance have been reported to be as high as $80,000 per year.  In November, 2010, the most recent estimate was that is cost $15,800 per year to maintain...JUST THAT ONE FIELD.

What about all those baseball fields and soccer fields and softball fields the taxpayers just built?  How much did they cost to build?  How much do they cot to maintain?   How come we don't hear anyone raising baseball athletic fees because of the cost of field development and maintenance?  Ferris Bueller?  Anyone?

What about the fieldhouse?  Nice gymnasium!  How much does it cost to heat/cool on game nights?  To cleanup?  Security?  Why is that not factored into baseball athletic fees?

Put away your arguments that we can't afford to build an ice rink with every high school.  We get it.  But it's the cost of education...right?  Jut because we have to purchase ice time, we shouldn't penalize a group of kids.  If you're going to say "No" to ice time, then maybe you should say "No" to a pool....to sports fields...to a basketball court.   Maybe we should can all the athletics and just focus on education.   While a few might agree with that concept, that's not going to happen...nor should it.  But we have to treat all sports equitably.

Budgeting differences
The one valuable piece of information we obtained on July 30th from Mr. McClowry was that the cost for ice time has to come out of Mr. McClowry's athletics budget.  Yet the cost of maintenance of any other field or facility is covered under the General fund.  Is that how every other district does things?  If so, no wonder why hockey costs so much.

Facility Use Fees
Perhaps if we actually CHARGED every sport that operated a "camp" in or on school facilities/fields, me wight be able to lessen the blow of ice time.

Don't we WANT kids to participate in athletics?
Jim McClowry has shown some great data that indicates that students participating in athletics get better grades.  They also become more connected and learn life lessons in teamwork and sportsmanship.   Some kids just naturally enjoy hockey as "their" sport...THEIR vehicle to connectedness and the rewards of athletics participation.  So why are we penalizing these kids for their choice?  If we raise the fee, participation is going to shrink...right?   Why would we do that?

Golf too
Sadly, the kids that play golf go through the same thing.  For them it greens fees.  The bottom line here is that, like ice time, paying for greens fees is no different than paying for field maintenance or utilities and depreciation on indoor facilities.

Who Are You Bargaining For?

The question of the day is: WHY is the SPEA Negotiating Team dragging out negotiations for 2012-13 (Hello!  We're beyond the midway point!  Time to start working for 2013-14!!!)

The school board offered a very fair package which addresses what SPEA (and WEAC) have declared to be a primary mission: raising the starting wage for teachers.  But that's not good enough.  You see, in order to do that with the pot of money available, a significant portion must be earmarked for those teachers with 1-6 years of experience.  That means that a small amount would be available to more tenured teachers, most in the form of a stipend (as opposed to a base salary builder).

It's called compromise, people!   You are getting to do some serious good for starting teachers.  But you're not willing to accept that because this plan calls for either a small token stipend (or perhaps nothing) for those teachers that already earn like...say...$86,000 in base salary. REALLY?  Is THAT what unions are all about?

Here's a novel idea.
If the union is really... well....unified...
...and union members really feel strongly but raising the base wage...
If they are that unhappy with a stipend amount of $460 each, why don't they all agree to donate those stipends to further increase the base wage?   As it is, the board proposal still means a base wage that is no more than par with the average paid throughout Dane Co. districts.
If even HALF of the stipend amount going to the upper 2/3 was used to further increase the base wage of those on the bottom rung, we could have a very competitive base wage.
What? sacrifice $500 to help your fellow teachers just starting out?  Fat chance!


What does a 2% across the board pay increase look like?
Let's take a look at that 2% increase and how it would play out the way SPEA wants it to.  Now, the best way to do that is to use that great salary matrix(for 2011-12 ending June 2012) put together by the District Office.  Yes...we'll state it up front...some of those upper end teachers (and some throughout the list) have either retired or moved on.  But we need a model to work with and this is what we have.
We also culled the list; we sorted it by base salary and excluded all individuals earning below $32,505, which is the base wage for a starting teacher.

What we are let with was a list of 552 staff members.
The total base salary of these folks was $26,971,406.
Th school board has budgeted for 2% of that amount for wage increases.
2% comes to $539,428.

Now...from the top of that amount, we have to pay those that earned a step or lane change.  The rest would be available for across the board (or whatever) wage increases.  For our purposes here,however, let's just assume there were no lane/step payments.  Let's just spread that $539 K evenly across the board at 2% increase per person.  And let's split the 552 employees into three groups, those earning the top, the bottom, and the mid-range base salaries.

And here's what happens....

Why should the upper 184 teachers glom onto 42.8% of the available wage increase pool?

Is SPEA suggesting that by virtue of tenure, those teachers at the top deserve a larger share of the pool?  Because while a 2% "across the board" wage increase sounds equitable, clearly it is not.

Remember...we only simplified this.  In actuality, after paying for those due an increase for lane or step movement (hopefully for the last time), we can only raise the base wage for teachers with less than 7 years tenure to $35,000.  That will leave approximately $460 for each of the remaining staff members paid as a stipend rather than a basebuilder.

For actual details of the standing school board offer:
http://sp-eye.blogspot.com/2012/11/spasd-offers-contract-proposal-to.html

Can We Get This Straight...PLEASE?

January is almost done.  The school board SHOULD be working up a budget for 2013-14.
Oh...but wait....the "professional educators" union is still stalling on raises for 2012-13.

They want more money...more than the 2% every other group got.
They want the raises percentage to apply to all members unilaterally.
We think they (or at least their negotiating team) need to get real.

We have agreed---repeatedly---with SPEA that entry level teachers need a wage hike.  But SPEA won't compromise.  We need to get rid of the grid and compress the salary structure.   Teachers serve a vital role...but a 5th grade educator needs neither a PhD or an $86,000 base salary.  We would be happy to advocate for something along the lines of a starting wage of $40-45,000 with a ceiling under $70,000.  You hit the ceiling and your pay is frozen until the school board changes the floor and ceiling...which may (or may not) be an annual adjustment.

It's a 9 month job, people
Please...we're so tired of the argument that the job of a teacher is a 12 month job.   Stop the madness.  Many of you work another job during the summer months.  So don't tell us that you work a summer job to pay the rent but then also tell us that you slave your summer away working on lesson planning.  Some of you work (and get paid additionally for) summer school assignments.  If you need all the summer months to do "lesson planning", how do you possibly have time to teach summer school?   Yeah....RRRRRight!  And the blue/white collar non teacher doesn't do ANY work during their vacation time. Think again.

So stop singing Aerosmith's "Dream On" and try David Bowie's "Get Real".  Seriously...can you please GET REAL?  Your contract is for 190 days.  That's all that is required.  The rest of the working world has a "contract" of 260 days.   That  means that you only work 73% of what the rest of the world works.  And that means that your $32,505 base wage is equivalent to  $44,500 that the rest of the world earns.  That means that our 5th grade teacher making $86,000 (for 190 days work) is equivalent to a salary of $117,800 for the rest of us.  Now...we're not saying that your base bay for  new teacher is great.  But that is a separate issue.  We need to stop comparing apples to pineapples....or...in this case...ROAD apples.

It's a choice...You do not need all those credits/degrees

Teachers will also cry that they spend all kinds of time and money paying for additional education credit that they "need".  Like we tell our kids:  NEED?  or WANT?   Many do not need credits; they WANT the credits because they know that every  credits gets them a 2% increase as they "change lanes" on the grid.  Fine...we do away with the grid and you can get off the gerbil wheel.

Now...maybe instead you want to be honest and tell us that at least some of you are obtaining an advanced degree so you can move into administration.   That's great...but it's also a horse of an entirely different color.  You do not need that degree for your teaching job...you seek it for something else.

By all means, advance your education if that's what you CHOOSE to do.  But do not use it to rationalize your need for better pay.

You're not the only ones that work more than 8 hrs/day
Again, we tire of all the stories of all the time spent beyond a teacher's working day doing "teacher stuff".  We're not drinking that Kool-Aid!  You think you have the market cornered on putting in more than 40 hrs per week on your job?  Think again.  The rest of the world ALSO routinely puts in more than their "required" time.  They work at night, on the weekends, while on vacation.

None of us work 40 hr weeks.  But the majority of us do not get the summers off where we could vacation, get a second job doing something else we enjoy doing, or do nothing.

You want to be known as PROFESSIONAL educators?  Then please ACT like a professional.

Is it really even 8 hrs/day?
Most of us go to our 9 to 5 jobs (or 8 to 4, or whatever)...our 8 hours jobs and, other than a 30 minute lunch (or 30 minutes of "break"), they o their job for the entire day.  We do not get *paid* time to "prep" for out jobs.  We are expected to be there and do it.

The best kept secret of professional educators is that they are only required to "teach" for 5 or maybe 6 "class period" per day.  Middle school is a great example.  Class "periods" are 45 minutes.  Teachers are required to teach 5 classroom periods plus take on one supervisory duty (study hall, lunchroom, etc.) per day.  Add it up people.  Including a 30 minute paid lunch, that accounts for 300 minutes, or 5 hours per day.  That means that they are paid for 3 hours (37.5%) of their daily time for work planning or classroom prep!!!!

How many of you non-teachers get 3 hours each day PAID time to prepare to do your job?


Let the crucifixion begin....but we need to get past the horse puckey and start being honest.  No more embellishing.  We grow weary of the nonsense.
Dear Professional Educators...it's time for you to accept the offer made by the school board and move on.   Your dreams of Act 10 being struck down have gone up in smoke.  Get over it.  Move on.  Hell...move forward.  The school board has offered you a VERY fair plan.

To borrow from a slightly crude but perhaps appropriate adage..."Tough titty said the kitty, but the milk is still good"

SP-EYE Focus for 2013

Here's what we're focusing on for the upcoming year.

+ Make School Safety & Security our #1 Goal

     The unthinkable tragedy which occurred at Sandy Hook recently should grab our collective attention.  We send our kids off to school, and we want to be sure that they are safe.  This is not to say that the security at Sandy Hook was in question.  Rather, it's a springboard for what we can do better.  Yes, enhanced security costs us ax dollars.  But if it saves just one child's life...isn't it worth it?

Screw Ashley Field.  Nobody seems inclined to do any fundraising; they seem to want their turf to come from the taxpayers' teats.  Instead, let's focus on moving  the timetable for completing planned secure entrances at schools that require an upgrade.  Let's make this happen...NOW.  And while we're t it...can we glean anything from the tragedies to further enhance the safety and security of our kids? 

+ Improve the Quality of District Information

      Someone needs to be held accountable, and the message has to be shouted from the mountain tops that district staff will provide the school bard and the public with only the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...or else.

“Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth.” --Ashley Brilliant

“A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.” ― Mark Twain

+ Resolve Facility Rental issues

     Is it just us?  Or is anyone else tired of that "It's all about the kids" mantra that is pulled out whenever folks want to do something that seems inherently wrong?  Let's be crystal clear here: athletic camps are great for our student athletes.  But (A) you're (usually) doing it on fields or in facilities paid for by the taxpayers, and (B) SOMEONE is pocketing oodles of cash.

While there are some cases where rental fees should be waived or at least negotiated, there needs to be a clear and consistent application of policy which already exists!  Someone or someones think that they are above policy and that should win the offenders a trip to the 'Splainin' Room.

We have an athletic director who publicly suggests that his budget isn't large enough.  Well...it might be if you collected all the missed revenues from granting uses of fields and facilities for free!  Of course we don't know...YET...who "ordered the code red", so to speak, but one would think that an AD with budget woes would be all over facility use fees like a monkey on a cupcake.  Right?

We just went through a fiasco where the poor kids that happen to have chosen hockey as their sport wre gonna get bashed on the head with an enormous fee increase....all to support the re-introduction of freshmen soccer teams.  Icetime costs were the culprit named.  Really?  So, because we built an expense fieldhouse for indoor sports and costly fields for outdoor sports, and even a pool...but didn't build an ice arena, hockey kids should get screwed?  We DON'T THINK SO!

Ice rental may be costly, but these fields and the fieldhouse have expenses associated with them as well. But those are never considered.  Where's the leadership in our athletics program to work at the state level to get all districts to understand this?  The other reason for raising the hockey fees was that all of the Joneses are doing it.  We say: stop being one of the sheep and start being the shepherd.

+ Fish or Cut Bait on Ashley Field Turf Project

      The Ashley Turf dealio has languished for too many years.  A year ago at a school board meeting, we learned that not one dime had been raised.  A year later....and still the only revenue we appear to have comes from a single club.  We also learned in July that more backroom discussions had transpired and what we were never told is that the plan to pave what is now Ashley's baseball field has folks wanting to increase the project cost by at least $350K for  new freshman baseball field.  Really?

And then we were given a figure for replacing that ticket booths that's only a small percentage of what the true cost will be.  This whole thing smells more than just funny and we're not even going to consider eating it.

+ Establish a Salary Cap

      Just as the NFL(which means us, since we ultimately bear the cost)  cannot afford to be paying a bust like JaMarcus Russell a guaranteed $31M (that's about $17M per TD pass), we cannot afford to pay $90,000 for an elementary school teacher with a PhD.  Most jobs in the real world have salary minima and maxima.  The complement to raising the floor for young teacher salaries is to install a ceiling...and not a glass one.

The "cap" can be flexible to move as needed due to outside pressures such as inflation...but we have to first have one.

+ Finish What You Started:  Rid the Grid

      It's time, people.  The grid must go.  It seems like that's what's coming if one reads between the lines in the district offer to teachers (which they didn't like...fancy that).  It's time to 'git 'er done.

2012 Goals in Review

It's time to review SP-EYE's goals for 2012.  Time to see how we fared.  What we very quickly learned is that this slate of board members (to be precise, 71.429% of them) gets it.  They understand the issues, and if they don't they request information or do their own research (and many times both).  They get it.  And that is what is changing the culture in this school district.

+ Forbid the Grid!

This one remains to be seen, but all signs point to this school board working to remove the grid.  Let's get real, people....what jobs do you know of that receive an automatic 3% increase just for being  year older (an another year with the district)?  PLUS they also would get any additional increase voted by the board.  We say: Two increases is too much.

"Dolts get paid the same as superior teachers, and PE teachers are paid the same as physics teachers," 
--- University of Idaho economics professor John T. Wenders

+ Raise the Floor; Lower the Ceiling.

This one remains in limbo until the "professional educators" come to agreement with the district/board.  But the school bard's message was clear in their offer:  we need to raise the salary floor to be competitive in recruiting the best and brightest young teachers.

+ Fix What Happened at the 2011 Annual Meeting.

Board president Tom Weber took this one to heart and made darn sure that no more shenanigans took place at the annual meeting.  The local SPARClers made  weak showing and effort to tax more, but it was soundly voted down.  And if they had won the vote, the board's message was abundantly clear:  the tax levy they had proposed was sufficient to operate and maintain schools.

+ Let Data Drive Elementary Space Decisions.

Funny how a little ...quality...data is all it takes to stop the speeding crazy train.  Board veep John Welke chaired a Task Force that dug deep into the issue of space.  It quickly became clear that the district plan to start working n elementary school #8 immediately was nothing but a case of premature  exhortation.

+ Improve Quality of District Information.

This is only area where the district still gets a failing grade.  The hockey fee fiasco was merely the latest example of a disease from which the district continues to suffer.  In addition, we have the continuing saga of the Ashley Field boondoggle, the latest episode of which now indicates that beyond what has been discussed previously, someone or someones wants to build a new frosh baseball field--to the tune of $350K-- because plans would involve raising the baseball portion of Ashley field.  Kinda like that oldie that talks about paving paradise to put up a parking lot.  For a little icing on the cake, we had the purchase of textbooks for 2013 using 2012 dollars without clarifying to the school bard that's what was being done.  And for good measure, let's toss in the district field facility use conflagration, and the mystery of the Sound of Sun Prairie.  Is it summer school...or an activity?  And does ANYONE (particularly DPI) exactly know how the SOSP money works?

+ Implement Health/Dental Equity for ALL staff.

It took quite some time, but we finally got there with the 2012-13 budget.   All staff NOW pay the same for health and dental.  The long running travesty still smarts, but the wounds will eventually heal.

3 More Years On the Crazy Train

There ain't no gettin' off this crazy train!
This ride will last another 3 years.

It's official:  three school board members's seats are up in April (Caren Diedrich, Steve Schroeder, and John Welke).  They each submitted nomination papers and declarations of candidacy.  No other candidates crawled out of the woodwork.  Not one SPARCle.

That means Mr. Schroeder and Welke can continue to forge a new path for this board and this district; it also means we have another three years of Caren Diedrich's zany comments.

A Ozzy would say,

Mental wounds still screaming 
Driving me insane 
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train 
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train 

I know that things are going wrong for me 
You gotta listen to my words 
Yeah