Community Corner
PATCH VOICES: In Schools Superintendent Search, Place Value on the Value of One's Place in APS
'This salary, though, for the new superintendent, it says, like corporations, that the leader is valued way more than the workers.'
by Roy Jackson
As the students of Atlanta Public Schools finished up their first quarter of school I walk around my building and listen. I listen to the chatter, the laughter, and the lessons. As news came out of the mayor’s private raising of $600,000 to fund the salary of a new superintendent I couldn’t help but hear again and again the lessons of place value in the mathematic units on number sense and couldn’t help but wonder if this money made sense to me.
So I researched on the internet and began lining up numbers. They are interesting. For almost twice as much money and a considerable amount of lower cost of living the new superintendent gets to oversee 79 schools versus over 1,000 that the Los Angeles Unified School District's superintendent oversees. For that money he/she gets to supervise fewer than 4,000 employees versus more than 30,000 for LA Unified. I literally had to line up the numbers vertically to see what sense that made. It doesn’t make any sense. The New York City public schools superintendent gets to oversee more than 1.1 million students for $233,000. The new APS superintendent gets to oversee 47,000. Not a bad gig for $600,000.
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I can hear the response now: “We need that kind of money to attract someone of quality.” I challenge the opposite. Do we only want to attract someone due to the money that we are offering? It seems that money and corruption go hand to hand. Couldn’t we attract someone of equal of greater quality who isn’t in it for such a corporate-sized salary? Yes, we can. That person is out there and as one who has spent over decade working in APS I want someone who wants to spread that donated money around.
The teachers of Atlanta have had pay cuts for six years running now. The system claims salary freezes, but with furloughs that is a pay cut; plain and simple. I am unsure if the superintendent has taken a furlough but I highly doubt it. APS seems confused by the meaning of furloughs; it seems someone at APS needs a dictionary. According to Webster’s, a furlough is a temporary layoff from work. Strangely, APS employees have never worked on Labor Day, Memorial Day or Christmas breaks. That isn’t a layoff from work, it is called an unpaid holiday. It is semantics and insulting to the employees to be “furloughed” on Labor Day.
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I can hear the response: "But you get 12 weeks off, paid." I respond with this: "No, I don’t." I am a contracted worker paid a salary for a job. That job is 191 days and I am paid for those days only. It is a job that in a right-to-work state with no true teacher union I could lose anytime with little reason. My salary is spread over 12 months. I have no control over that. Although, the system I work for gets its federal dollars in lump sums, they chose to hold my income over 12 months. I don’t know why but I make the assumption it is to earn interest on said monies. When I first started teaching in another state that didn’t happen. I was paid over the time I worked and I had to save money for the summer breaks since no check came my way in the summer.
So I go back to place value lessons in elementary school and what this crazy salary proposed by the mayor means. It means this to me. I am not valued. One person is worth way more than the entire workforce. Why does this job get more than a 100 percent pay increase and the entire workforce gets pay cuts? It reminds me of the Beverly Hall days, the days this city wants to put behind us. Why did she have a paid driver and body guards? It was placing importance where it wasn’t merited. I couldn’t find where the superintendents of other schools had such extravagant bonuses like drivers and body guards. If we are pinching our pennies why are we spending this kind of money? More aggravating this reminds me of the bank bailouts where the CEO’s took the federal bailout then took bonuses and private planes everywhere. I can’t believe this is the message Mayor Reed and the donors are choosing to send, but sadly it is exactly the message they are sending.
I believe one person can make a difference; one great bus driver in every bus, one great chef in every cafeteria, one great principal in every building, one great teacher in every class, and uncounted great kids in every room. This salary, though, for the new superintendent, it says, like corporations, that the leader is valued way more than the workers. This salary says education takes a back seat and the one leader is above all else.
Sadly, this isn’t a corporation and I fear anyone who takes this job and money will walk into resentment and skepticism from parents, workers and students. I challenge the donors, find an appropriate salary, not this crazy amount the mayor wrongly thinks will attract someone. Find that someone for the right price and put the rest back into the classrooms that have lost so much. The kind of leader that craves that kind of money takes us right back to a previous leader with bodyguards, private drivers and an office on a top floor inaccessible to everyone below. Find that leader who will put his/her office on the main floor, in the classroom and drive himself/herself to work.
Mr. Jackson has taught in Atlanta Public Schools for 12 years and is now a media specialist.
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