On another post Anonymous wrote:
Requesting a thread for http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11204/1162463-298.stm
I have a friend in technology who was told to start showing other people how to do his job. He thought he had survived the big layoff last month.
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6 comments:
Note the kind of specialists being laid off- behavioral intervention and parent engagement- people who work directly with students and families to help students arrive at school ready and able to learn.
The money wasted on CEP could have funded this staff for a long time.
PPG reporting on layoffs tends to present what is happening in PPS as largely part of a statewide phenomenon resulting from cuts to state government funding on education. No real investigation into the extent to which statewide cuts are really to blame, and no discussion as to why student enrollment is declining.
Between the Governor's preliminary proposal and the House Republican additional funds were allocated for Pittsburgh, including about 40% of the accountability block grant and even more in the basic education subsidy.
For well overs year PPS' budget forecasts assumed no growth in State money and the loss of Stimulus funds.
The conditions driving this year's layoffs and the rounds to come are 1) PSERS employer contributions AND the additional local costs associated with 1) TIF grant, 2) Gates grant, and 3) other grants that ended but left huge annual legacy costs, like PELA.
PPS receives way more than it's fair share of State money. The blood is not on Corbett's hands; this fiasco is owned by Roosevelt/Lane/Fischetti/Weiss.
Rather interesting as all Central Office personnel who were NOT laid off last month were explicitly told by Linda Lane herself that there would be no more lay offs of Central Office personnel....
The Governor's budget proposal was released almost five months ago; it eliminated 100% of Accountability Block Grant funds used by the district to pay non-Head Start Pre-K costs,
The House Republican version was released nearly four months ago and gratefully it restored about 40% of ABG.
A month ago the budget is adopted with ABG at roughly 40%.
All three dates really beg the question: why is PPS just now figuring out that it would need to cut non-Head Start programming?
Really?
How can you be the last district in the state to figure out that less ABG meant less staff somewhere?
Shame, shame, shame. With a well paid lobbyist (Buchanan Ingersoll) and an exceptionally paid financial analyst ($50,000/month for ONE resource from a company Two Bell LLC that runs out of the owner's Squirrel Hill house AND never before existed), it's bit unreasonable to expect this to have been figured out by the end of June.
Not to be funny...but...there are parents who at this point have no idea that some things previously available won't be next year. They will wait until just before school starts to begin looking for a spot for their little kid because they think, "just take them up there and drop them off and say you'll be back at 3 o'clock." At this point if the district goes ahead and really enforces the "small" changes they claim will be made, wait for the outrage to come. One thing mentioned at the A+ meeting was changes to transportation. I don't remember all the details of what is being considered but one was fewer stops.
Anon 9:20
I wonder if this is an instance where the Pittsburgh Educator, the PPS printed PR paper, couldn't provide valuable and insightful information for parents facing the changes.
I certainly would love to see a cover story on "Taking Care of Number One: A behind the scenes look at the March 7, 2011 raises for executives."
That story could include soundbites from the leadership of each union on why the raises where inspirational to the rank and file as 200 employees were laid off/furloughed.
A few parent quotes about how unfair it would have been for each of the highly compensated Chiefs to dig in a little harder at the office given the times.
Maybe even a word of encouragement from the US Secretary of Education, PA Secretary of Education or even Governor Corbett that Executive raises are exactly the kind of Pre-K12 investment they think will move the needle of student achievement.
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