Merit and combat pay for teachers makes sense for a school system as huge and challenging as Wichita’s. That’s why it was good that teachers and the teachers’ union had been involved in crafting an alternative compensation program with the district. But Wichita superintendent Winston Brooks and the school board sent a lousy message Monday by hurdling that process and proceeding with Brooks’ own plan to give $1,500 bonuses to teachers at high-poverty schools. True, there is something surreal about seeing teachers unhappy about getting more money, but the district has negated the good will behind its gesture by ticking off the union and kissing off the collaborative process. At least the policy will be reviewed next year before it will be repeated.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- LonnythePlumber on Health care reform would save state money
- aldenrw on Let immigrants run
- Regular on Let immigrants run
- Regular on Too many exemptions
- Monkeyhawk on Let immigrants run
- Regular on Let immigrants run
- Politico on Too many exemptions
- XXX on Open thread 11/23
- XXX on Let immigrants run
- BlueJay on Let immigrants run
5 Comments
Well put Rhonda. It is extremely hard for some of us to understand why our Superintendent would throw the provisions of good-faith bargaining out the window and go against the wishes of the teachers on such a matter. All we are left to assume is that he was so bent on implementing some form of alternative compensation, to get a feather in his administrative cap, that he was willing to bargain in bad faith and to totally negate the efforts of all involved with the Alternative Compensation Program.
Despite probably hundreds of calls, letters, and emails to The BOE, explaining in reasonable terms why Mr. Brooks’ Bonus Plan was not something that we wanted and that to implement his plan, as he had in mind, was quite likely in violation of Kansas Labor Law, it is extremely hard to understand why The BOE would approve such a thing.
One is left to assume that, like the puppets that they appear to be, the BOE members are just willing to blindly rubber-stamp anything that Mr. Brooks proposes. This makes one wonder just exactly what their purpose is for being on such a board. Ms. Dietz’ motion to review the bonus next year, while appearing objective, may just be a ruse to initiate other half-baked uses of such a bonus.
Our local teacher’s union, The UTW, will pursue the legality of what they ALL have done. This may not be over until the fat man swings!
Wichita TeacherIf the Board was just “rubber stamps” and “puppets” like you allege, wouldn’t the vote have been 6 – 0 ? I thought the vote was 4 – 2 ?
The teachers need to take a class on union agreements & negotiations.
They should take any and all concessions that are freely offered, then go to the next item.
Sorry, got to disagree with you there, Tracy.
Any money that the Superintendent hands out unilaterally to people that he “likes” is money that is not available to all the others.
If the pool were infinite, you’d be right–take it where you can get it. But it’s not. Those who get more take from those who either get less or could have gotten more too . . .
You are correct AAA. Apparently, they aren’t ALL rubber-stampers. I hadn’t attended that meeting because I don’t want administration to get familiar with my unhappy mug. As I recall, the Eagle had not posted voting results on that issue in their follow-up article.It is good to know that we do have some independent thinkers in that crowd. I believe that Mr. Gramke may have changed his mind on that matter.Here was the vote tally:Yeas: Ms. Dietz, Mr. Harding, Ms. Nolan, Mr. RogersNays: Mr. Gramke, Ms. Skelton
PS: Put a sock in it TRACY.