Special Guests, Good News, And Good Timing For WED

Special Guests and Good News

This has been an exciting week for our school community with many special guest and many honors.  Our city's motto is "A City on the Move" and these highlights will demonstrate that the Woonsocket Education Department is on the move as well.

Governor Lincoln D. Chaffee held his 2010 NECAP Results Release News Conference on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011 at Globe Park Elementary School.  The Governor, Patrick A. Guida (Vice Chairman of the Board of Regents), and Deborah Gist (Rhode Island Commissioner of Education) spoke at this prestigious event. Also attending were Colleen Callahan, Anna Cano-Morales, and Betsy Shimburg who are all members of the Rhode Island Board of Regents

Commissioner Gist chose Globe Park Elementary School for the news conference because of their outstanding 2010 test scores.  While the Governor and Commissioner explained that the majority of high schools saw a big increase in Math test scores, they commented that the elementary test scores across the state were relatively flat.  Everywhere, that is, except Woonsocket.  At Globe Park the fifth grade Reading scores were up 7% and the Math scores were up a 19%.  The third grade Reading scores were up by 11% and Math scores were up by 11%.  The Commissioner noted that Globe Park's test scores rose from below the state average to above the state average.  These big gains were impressive enough for our state officials to want to highlight our achievements.  I would also like to note that the test scores at Bernon and Citizens were also impressive.  We are hopeful that when the accountability classifications are announced later this year, that both of those schools will no longer be in choice status.

I would like to thank our talented staff and students who performed at the news conference and represented Woonsocket so well.  The Pledge of Allegiance was performed by Lila Mae Smith, Anastajah Salvas, and Kailey Ferreira.  Also David Dausco (elementary music teacher,) lead the two fifth grade classes as they sang a very patriotic song titled "Choices."  During my opening remarks, I made sure to recognize the School Improvement Team (SIT) and the PTA for their support and leadership that has helped Globe Park Elementary School reach this accomplishment.

Ken Bell (sportscaster for RI Channel 6) was the guest pronouncer at the Woonsocket 2010-2011 District Spelling Bee which was held at Woonsocket Middle School at Hamlet on Feb. 10, 2011.  At the Spelling Bee on Thursday night we had quite a battle for first place.  Having been a judge for several years, I have never seen the Scripps Spelling Bee Word List start off with such difficult words.  This year the competition went on for twenty five rounds.  It was neck and neck race at the end but the final result was that the first place winner was Jared Brier, a grade six student at Woonsocket Middle School Hamlet. The runner up was William Flores, a grade eight student at Woonsocket Middle School Hamlet.  All of the students who competed deserve a congratulations for winning their school level spelling bee.

Finally, I want to take this time to share some good news from our Engineering and Technology Education Department at Woonsocket High School.  Mrs. Starring is the Woonsocket High School Technology Teacher.  Her students competed in a robotics competition on Saturday Feb. 5, 2011 and Woonsocket won the Think Award.

Good Timing

After the speeches at a Governors News Conference, the media has a chance to ask questions.  At the Governors' news conference in Woonsocket, a Globe Park PTA member asked a very important question.  She wanted to know how the Commissioner of Education felt about All-Day Kindergarten.  The Commissioner identified her experiences in early childhood teaching and said that she was going to try and support state legislation that would mandate All-Day Kindergarten.  This was very good timing and the Governor also voluntarily addressed this question.  He said that he hopes to be able to increase funding to education which could support such important initiatives as All-Day Kindergarten.     

On Wednesday night we had a long school committee meeting where the budget was discussed and a first passage on a balanced budget occurred.  This is good timing because according to the Woonsocket City Charter, the school department must send the Mayor a proposed budget by March 1st.  In these financial times, this was a challenging task and the school committee had many difficult decisions to make.  At one point the elimination of Kindergarten Teachers Assistants was considered.  The School Committee listened to the audience during the good and welfare section of the meeting and were able to maintain the funding of the Teachers Assistant positions in this budget.  Many of the recommendations that came from the Performance Audit were included in the budget.  One more notable recommendation was the elimination of the Woonsocket Education Department maintenance positions that maintain Barry Field.  That reduction was presented with a request that the Mayor consider consolidating those responsibilities to the City's Parks and Recreation Department.  That recommendation came from the Woonsocket School Committee Finance Sub-committee. 

One invited member to the Finance Sub-committee and president of the Woonsocket Taxpayers Coalition, Mr. Steve Lima, was interested to learn that the reason the budget was easier to balance this year was because all three unions had agreed to significant concessions over three years in their contract renegotiations.  He noted that personnel expenses are over eighty five percent of a school departments budget.  Mrs. Busby identified that due to these concessions, there was only a slight increase in personnel salaries. Although he knew that the teachers agreed to a salary freeze, he was concerned that the step raises could still be a major problem.  Mrs. Busby noted that the major increases in the budget were from annual health insurance carrier increases and transportation increases; not from salaries.  Mr. Lima was surprised to learn that the majority of our teachers are between near ten years of experience to slightly more than twenty years of experience.  Less than half of our teachers are under ten years of experience and they were the only teachers to receive the step-pay. 

Mr. Lima suggested that for the benefit of all taxpayers, I should explain these financial facts that sub-committee discusses but yet often go unnoticed during regular school committee meetings or budget workshops.  I agreed that would be a good idea and also explained that I believe that the community often misunderstands the actual benefits of the Chapter 16 law that allows the teacher step raise system.  

The community often considers step-pay raises as unfair automatic increases.  However, from my perspective, the step-pay increase system actually saves the tax-payer money by keeping teacher salaries artificially low during the first ten years of their employment.  I used a personal example from when I graduated from college (so many years ago in 1989.)  My two best friends pursued different careers than I did and gained significant monetary rewards after graduation.  We all attended four years of college and gradated with Bachelor's degrees.  As a first-year teacher my starting salary was $24,500.  My friend who graduated with a degree in electrical engineering started his first job with a salary of $50,000.  And my other friend who graduated with a degree in business began his career with a salary of $70,000 plus commissions.  With the same amount of college work, it took me ten years to reach a salary that was similar to the starting salary of my friend with the business degree and he has long since surpassed me.  My reduced salary was a savings for the taxpayers in the communities that I worked in.  The step raise system continues to provide those savings even though it looks like those teachers are getting automatic big raises.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Gerardi, Jr., Ph.D.

Superintendent of Schools

Woonsocket Education Department

“Now you have me putting morality ahead of money… I might as well become a teacher”

Alec Baldwin, (30 Rock television episode on 10/11/10)