The dreaded entry into high school; how bad is it

O

orangecat1

500+ Posts
Our older son is entering high school this fall. I had a couple of questions that needed to be answered by a counselor, found out that we have a "lead counselor" who is "working" all summer.

Emphasis on the "working", as this is b.s. I emailed the questions on June 9, forwarded to her again about a week later, she replied a few days later saying she had unexpected surgery, etc. promised to investigate, and as of this coming Thursday, it will be 3 weeks since I asked the questions.

I just sent her a reminder, with a big hint "is there a different way you would like me to communicate, I could always come by the school and visit".

1. Is this the standard? I hope not, I'm already planning on attending school board meetings talking about waste, I might as well throw her under the bus as well, got her first certificate in 1976, my 6th grade year, is extremely overpaid, at :

COUNSELOR LEAD - 225 $77,727

just noticed the 7s, she obviously needs to retire and go to Vegas
laugh.gif
 
1. Considering that she has at least a masters degree and over 30 years of experience, I wouldn't consider her grossly overpaid.

2. Maybe she has had some complications with her surgery. I would call up there and ask. If so, they can probably direct you to somebody that can answer your question.

3. As with the students, high school is what you make of it. Not everything is going to be well organized. I would suggest letting your child deal with some of this so that you don't have to. It will also prepare him for dealing with a large public university if he chooses to go that route.
 
Step away from the ledge - everything's going to be alright. I know what you type here isn't what you say in front of your kid; however, don't you think this type of frustration/anxiety is going to bleed through to your kid?

Just finished our freshman year and it was a good year. Our biggest mistakes were: a) getting a little too worked up about this or that, and b) not helping with him with time management until the 2nd semester. Ended up every Thursday night sitting down with him to review past grades (e.g., "Son, why did you get a zero for this homework assignment?") and future assignments/tests. It was like I was his sales manager, and he was going over his pipeline report. Attention to details wasn't (kinda still isn't) his long suit.

On the social side the freshman and sophomore years are a challenge b/c they're beginning to get around older kids who enjoy some freedoms (e.g., driving) that he's not ready for. Told him up front last fall that he's about to hear "no" from me a whole lot and for both of us need to be patient. My favorite was him saying, "Hey, going to X's birthday party then we're going to go see 'The Hangover 2' afterwards." Ahhhhhh, no you're not.

I think I learned my kid's is more capable than I thought, but not as capable as he thinks he is. Good luck.
 
Guidance counselors are for the most part on summer break and those that are not are scrambling to take care of the graduates with transcripts, dual credit course proofs, etc. They pretty much know that your incoming freshman can probably be taken care of in 2 minutes at the beginning of school.

A friend whose kid is going into the corpturds at eAtMe is pulling her hair our over the inability to get dual credit and AP credit from our high school. That affects registration and, as we all know, getting ****** class times or ****** classes in college can make for a miserable experience for the first real move away from home. She is having to go to the superintendant's office to get a secret cell number for a guidance counselor.

A little perspective?
 
Keep in mind, also, that during the summer, while the lead counselor is still "working", that is the time many districts/schools will send them to additional trainings or conferences. So they may be out for a week at a time. Lead counselors will also be working on the master schedule and trying to handle any testing that needs to be done on incoming students. The upper administrators in most public schools are off for 2-3 weeks right around July 4th and then back to school for them.

I just finished my first year teaching freshman, after 13 years at 7th and 8th grade (28 total pub sch yrs). As stated above, the best thing to do for and with your kid is to teach him/her time management skills. Another valuable skill to teach him/her is how to be their own advocate. Rather than you talking to the teacher about a grade or assignment, coach him/her to talk with the teacher first. Too many times I have dealt with parents first when the problem would have been easily solved had the student talked to me first. They are either afraid or lazy. Either way, it is an important life skill - learning to have a difficult conversation. It is the same approach I use with my students when I deal with them - can you and I solve this issue or do we need to bring your parents in? I try to encourage them to be a big part of their own solutions and involve parents only when the student can not or will not work with me.

Your kid will be fine - stay informed, encourage proactivity.
 
1. as an educator of 10 years who makes less than 50k, I guarantee you she is overpaid at 77k. - she is one of three counselors at a high school of 1600 students, and she gets 38 extra days(225-187) of pay to do her job, and almost all of these extra 38 days are without students to bother her.

2. I agree apples to apples and oranges to oranges,BUT I was a manager in the food business a long time ago. There is no way I would ever let a customer go more than a few days without them at least knowing I was working on their question.

And yes, we did have the occasional question from a customer that required some research -would've been about turkeys, casseroles, macaroni and cheese, etc.

3. I just spent about an hour-mostly on hold but some talking with TEA about my question(it's about EOCs); and the answer so far is "we don't know yet for sure, but tentatively, here is the answer". A counselor with 30 years could have made that call 2 weeks ago, and multitasked the heck out of that, probably cut that hour in half, and gotten what I got out of the answer.

3. I did call the high school, asked if she was okay, the receptionist said yes, she's there and fine.

4. Now that I know the answer, it will be interesting to see how long it takes her to find the answer, and see if she gets the same answer. This could get interesting. Maybe she makes my presentation about overpaid senior employees at tomorrow night's school board meeting?
 
"I might as well throw her under the bus as well, got her first certificate in 1976,"

Yeah, **** that old *****. You go bro retire that worn out old hag.
 
you guys will be relieved to know that I didn't throw her under the bus. I did present my cuts to 2012-13 though.

The CFO is very smart, but he has already hinted at his next strategy. We're at the state maximum for tax rate right now, at 1.54.

He mentioned the words "tax election" at least 3 times. My main objective at the presentation was to let the school board know that we are overpaying our administration. I recommended over $1,000,000 of cuts, of which over 400k came just from reducing highly paid administration salaries. I cut and pasted from Texastribune.org part of the table that showed McKinney has a median salary of 48,200(#2 on the list of ISDs in the area of districts with #s of employees from 1000 to 6000) despite the fact that our supt. has a salary of 220k, one of the lowest on the list.

iow, we're the 2nd highest in admin salaries of the districts surveyed, the only one higher is Plano, and it costs a lot more to live in Plano than it does in McKinney.

in short we have too many highly paid administrators.

In my plan I combined small administration departments.

My plan saves 21 teachers jobs, lays off 5 unnecessary admin. employees, and does so without touching the big 5:

1. stipends
2. instructional specialists
3. counselors
4. librarians
5. assistant principals.

This is where the big money is. Now that I know the CFOs next move, I just need to get the tea party involved.

I can see it now. The CFO is gonna convince the board that they've made all the cuts they can make, and we have to have a tax election or we will have to lay off 200 teachers. Meanwhile they are continuing the same old stipends and exorbitant administration pay.

Once I get the tea party involved, this should be interesting.
 
man, posts like this reinforce my thoughts that teachers and counselors don't get paid enough.

what a nightmare.
 
that's right loop. I am a teacher, and I know where the huge spending is happening. Planning for next year needs to be happening now, and it is. Mr. Tax election has already made his plan. They're going to tell us in March or April that "we've made all of the cuts we can make, now we have to raise taxes or lay off 400+ teachers".

What is more important to our future, highly paid administrators, or laying off teachers? They're gonna decide they would rather lay off teachers than even try to cut overpaid administrators and counselors.

The planning for real cuts, needs to happen starting now, don't wait until next year. Obviously I don't work for the school district in question. And I don't plan to work for them either.

Again, I made over $1 million worth of cuts without touching:

1. Stipends.
2. instructional specialists
3. counselors
4. librarians
5. assistant principals


As far as "pulling" something, there is no way any educator on the face of the earth would let more than two weeks go by without at least trying to answer a parent's question. And yes, our counselors in our public schools are extremely overpaid, if they're making 77,000 a year.

Also, there is no way a counselor who has all of those extra days of working without students to deal with, can take over two weeks to try to research a question. I admit it's not an easy question, but again, I got tired of waiting, called TEA and had the answer in less than ONE HOUR.

Okay, flame away with specifics this time.
 
Considering that most teachers with a masters degree and 30+ years of experience in Texas top out around 60k, 77k doesn't seem like too much of a stretch considering she works year round and is in charge of the other counselors.

As far as not cutting enough admins, my district cut 25% of our district admin budget. If they have cut less than that, I would propose that mark as a reasonable goal before cutting teachers. Districts should also be looking at ways to bring in extra revenue with things such as advertising, after school programs, etc.
 
Regarding school administrative budgets, they exist for a reason, and that reason is the long-term trend in increasing reporting requirements and complex financing schemes. Admins are there to navigate all that, ensure compliance with local, state, and federal statues, and take the paperwork load off the teachers. I fear that cutting admins will shift the paperwork load to teachers, leaving them less time to prepare for class. From my experience, teachers made time for sometimes grading by showing a movie in class.
 
Everything that you said is true. We will see how next year goes with the 25% cuts. If cuts have to be made, I would rather keep teachers in classrooms with the extra paperwork.
 
Larry T., you are right on. I calculated my cuts, and they amount to approximately 18%. Now, they have cut some, they say, but their "cuts" include such dubious items as "every top administrator will substitute teach one day each quarter".

Also, our high schools started at an earlier starting time, starting in 10-11. Why? because that way they could cut the amount of substitutes required because athletics teams were leaving the building early, requiring more subs in the building from 2:30 on.

Those are the types of "cuts" they are making. Granted they are cuts, but they are trivial. I'm proposing real cuts.

Oh, yes, I forgot, they did cut the cheerleading coordinator. Yea! For those of you who forgot, we had a cheerleading coordinator because of the lawsuit in reference to the cheerleader scandal about 6 years ago. Instead of requiring accountability from the principals, they decided to hire a 63k + person to be a "cheerleading coordinator". waste, waste, waste.

Btw, I am working on a new form of evidence showing how overpaid our administrators are. divide the number of employees paid over 100k in the ISD by the number of employees. You get a number. Using the Texas Tribune data, McKinney ISD is near the top, at 0.00729 (17 divided by 2332)

So we're near the top, no big deal, right. Guess what, how many of those other school districts are at the state maximum in property taxes and ALREADY PLANNING A TAX ELECTION??? Almost certainly, and I haven't finished my research, NONE!!!!

In my calcs. I am not counting the supt., because they have a multi-year contract. Everybody else is fair game.

Regarding the lead counselor pay: According to the Tribune there are three other counselors. This is a school of only 1600 students.

225 days, let's analyze this. She already proved she doesn't need 225 days to do her job, she was out for a minor surgery for probably 10 days.

Mean, cutthroat, cat, you're so mean!! Guess what, when I worked for an ISD, they cut our leave from 10 to 8 days one year, and nobody sqawked.

The charter school I work for now gives us 5 days a year, and we can carry over 0. Now you want to talk lean, that's lean!

If I can be lean, so can they.

So, you can figure out where I'm going. 225 days no more. I dont' know exactly how low I will propose, but put it this way:

If we're really serious about keeping teachers, we don't need to go much higher than 187. And yes, I would love to shadow a lead counselor and see what they're actually doing during the summer.

Back to the overpaid administrator list.

The number 1 ISD on the list is Highland Park, but they have an excuse if they require admins. to live in the district. Median home price in HP is probably 4 or 5 times median home price in McKinney, I would think, so that makes sense that they pay admins. that much. Also HP has a very low number of employees, so that skews the numbers a bit.

It is very cheap to buy a home in McKinney ISD right now, probably one of the cheapest places in North Texas, if you don't demand a mansion.
 
..and I just discovered a piece of info. regarding the calendar.

McKinney ISD is paying staffers such as this counselor, for days they don't work.

Here is how it works. Look at the calendar, in the summer McKinney ISD is open four days a week. But, they are closed the entire week of July 4th. Btw, summer hours are hardly different in length(7:30 to 5:00)

Now add all of the possible days in the summer to the standard 187 day contract, and you get 223. That's right, there is not enough days in the calendar to equal 225, even if these highly paid people wanted to work their entire 225.

Now, the exception would be maintenance, there is at least one person who is in facilities maintenance on a 260 day contract, I can imagine that man actually checking the facilities on days that office workers are off. Actually working every weekday of the year.

But, other than him, all of those 235 day, 225 day, and anything above 223 day contracts are at the very minimum total bs.

Unless there is some trick to the deal. I can't imagine any admin. or counselor, or anybody coming in on Thanksgiving, X-mas, spring break, etc.
 
Fair enough.

I know two people that are school counselors. One in Texas another in Virginia. They do way more than when they taught, have way more stress and have more refresher courses and workshops to go to. They are on the line much more and deal with every teachers biggest problems. I think they deserve a bit more if they are good at what they do. Problem is that is a tough test to pass. Nobody is perfect and isilated incidents may not indicate a pattern.

This one may or may not be up to snuff but it's a job few would want. It is tougher than teaching, sorry. I say this having spoken to both friends who were once teachers. One is a Masters Degree holder the other was LD and ESL certified. She is going back to school to get specialized in Science and Math and get back in the classroom with some security.
 
Charter Schools are a joke.

EOC is a joke.

You have too much time on your hands, OP.

whats the actual question you had? just curious
 
too much time on my hands, yes, I only have one part-time job this summer, need another part-time job.

btw, here is another little tidbit. The school board met on a Friday, when the district is closed, to appoint a new school board member. I called the district yesterday to find out his name, the communications people finally answered their phone an hour later. The guy, making over 50k a year, could tell me his name, but couldn't spell the board member's name.

I'm not making this stuff up, people.

A little background on communications. This is an example of waste in ISDs.

before 2005 I knew the lady in charge of communications. She had a son in my son's class. She had maybe one person working for her. She made "high-end" teacher money, so in today's $ she made 65k, + her assistant made beg. teacher money, so in today's $ that would be 45k.

So total compensation in today's $ is 110k.

fast forward to 2011, the payroll for communications is approx. 390k. That's over 3.5 X as much as in '05. Did we grow 3.5X? no. Are we getting even the same amount of communications as before? Not even close. She would respond to emails if you had a question, almost always within 24 hours. She took her job seriously, and was a professional.

Now, we've got a bunch of amateurs who don't give a flip if they do their job or not, because they know this admin. is not gonna cut anybody.

The same story probably exists for every other department as well, that's just the one I happen to know.

In the main office, they added staff on top of staff in every department up until now, because the district was growing and they could get away with it.

At least the piling on of staff members has stopped.
 
"tougher than teaching", now that's an interesting conversation.

Part of my job during my first 5 years of teaching was to work with the counselor; my last year in this particular position we had to implement this new thing that came along called "Texas Observation Protocol". It's a measurement system that measures progress for English Language Learners.

This is a good example of how counselors view their job. It was a moderately intense 3-4 week period of time, during which we had to train the teachers, and follow up with the teachers on obtaining writing samples, and try to get the teachers to put the writing samples in the correct order.

imo, counselors have these projects that start and finish, but they view them as very stressful, because they also have the responsibility for "counseling", which actually does happen to a small degree, at least at the public school where I worked.

Personally, I would enjoy the projects, but would get bogged down with the counseling.

Here's my point, as a high school counselor, you have students who actually need "counseling"- I'm talking about actually needing someone to talk to because parents aren't available. That is part of your day. I would imagine that is 30% or less of your day, but it can pop up at any time during the school year.

During those 176 days when students and teachers are on campus together and the counseling is happening, I have NO PROBLEM with a high daily rate of pay.

HOWEVER, this lead counselor is getting 49 days over and above those 176 days, JUST TO DO PAPERWORK PROJECTS.

Yes, they are important, but it's not near worth what they are paying her.

Ideally there should be a separate daily pay rate for work when students are not in school.

Remember, part of doing projects involves research. This particular counselor told me via email she needed to research the question I asked because it will come up with other students. I got tired of waiting for her, and researched it myself, had the answer in ONE HOUR.

She did eventually come back with an answer "I talked to my supervisor, and we are waiting for an answer from TEA".
 
was the question you were asking about referring to EOC? cause schools really are in the dark at the moment due to cut backs at TEA.
 
Here's the question. Whether my son who took Algebra I in middle school this past year will have to take an EOC exam during high school for Algebra I.

When I called TEA, they were very specific that their philosophy was to not do anything to make the situation harder on the student. That being said, their preliminary answer was no-the kid gets grandfathered. Makes sense. They did say, this was not their final answer, because at that point the Legislature had not adjourned yet.

I called back a few weeks later, to get the "final answer", and the people in assessment said they didn't have a final answer because they are considering allowing a child in this circumstance to choose to take an EOC, because Algebra I might be an easier EOC than Geometry or Algebra II for example. So the final answer might eventually be student choice.

According to this person in assessment the model they are currently using is a model in which a student has to have a certain amount of points in the subject, example a certain minimum score in Math.

As far as the local issue, all the counselor had to do was make that one phone call to TEA, and email to me "preliminary answer-no, final answer will happen sometime before school starts, most likely August"
 
no, the waste in administration has been there for some time. This was an opportunity to remind the school board that while they were busy patting themselves on the back for doing such a great job finishing the budget for 11-12, that the real serious budget problem would be for 12-13.

The board is so complacent that they will accept whatever the CFO says without batting an eyelash. He will come to the board in the spring and say something to the effect of "we've made all the cuts we can make, we have to have a tax election to raise taxes".

How do I know this? Because he said the words "tax election" at least three times. He's got his strategy all planned out.
I described budget cuts that should be made. This board has made some cuts, but mostly fluff, stuff like having the supt substitute teach one day a quarter. The counselor is simply an example of somebody that despite 30+ years of experience, cannot be bothered to make a simple phone call, on a subject she needs to be informed about. Remember, even though the answer I have is not a "final complete answer", I have the basic answer, but the veteran counselor making high 70k salary, doesn't have a clue.

This school district has so much fat, it's hard to understand, unless you experience it.

The biggest example in administration is the "communications department". What a joke, in terms of paying money going down the drain. going from a total salary of 110k in 2004, in today's dollars, to now almost 400k, is a total waste.

This is for a district that is at the state maximum without a tax election, a district that will, imo call a tax election without even trying to make real cuts.

One example: a year ago in May, May 2010, I called a friend who teaches at the elementary school my sons attended and I told her "I bet I can guess how many students are in your class", and I was correct, 19.

That was 5th grade, which is not subject to the 22 student limit.. That was the same grade that when my older son was in school, they had 12 in his class, and that was only 2 years previous to that. My younger son, in 4th grade, had 13 students in his class. Fat, fat, fat.

Plenty of other examples, too many high-paid technology supervisors on year-round contracts, a swmming coach on a 235 day contract, ridiculous stipends.

Btw, how many days do you think the swimming coach is coaching? School is in session 176 days, is he coaching a bunch of kids in the summer for free? Can I take my kids over there in the summer and have free swimming and diving lessons?

He makes almost as much as the overpaid lead counselor.

Check out the check register if you don't believe me about stipends.
 
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