By Juan Montoya
Over the past few weeks and countless meetings the Brownsville Independent School District board of trustees has used the numbers knife to whittle the budget to fit the district's needs without having to raise property taxes.
Those of us who have attended have heard some of this district's employees propose cost-cutting measures that sometimes budget workshops have heard that sometimes could have resulted in some of their own benefits curtailed.
On the other hand, some teacher groups representatives have made it clear they will fight the changes at every turn.
Such was the response to the proposal by members of the Ad Hoc Budget Committee to limit the amount of sick-leave payoutsd top 30 days. Actually, sick-leave is a misnomer of sorts because employees actually use the allotted days for personal business. Female employees tend to use more, it was pointed out, because some have children who get sick and they stay home to tend to their kids.
Ad Hoc members said that limiting the payout to 30 days could save the district millions that can be shifted to other areas of the budget.
However the point didn't sit well with some representatives of certified personnel wh0 because of their seniority have racked up hundreds of sick days over their years of service.
"This is discriminatory toward them," said a representative. "Nobody let them know this could change."
Even the district's move to limit summer busing drew a mixed response. The district selected schools on both sides of the city to allow students to make up their TAKS tests so they can graduate with their class.
However some school administrators say this puts a burden on some students whose parents can't drive them to the distant campus.
"We've got to look at this thing closely because we could be saving on gas but not getting students to walk across that stage with their class," said a high school principal.
Some suggestions that lead teachers in Adult Education department be used to supplement personnel in regular classrooms have elicited response in defense of director Debbie Alford.
Defenders of the former Canales Elementary principal point out that when Alford came on board last year she inherited a department left in a shambles by former Adult Ed director Oscar Cantu, who gained local notoriety when the local daily reported he and his son Oscar Jr. were listing fake PhDs in their resumes.
"Cantu used to run the department in the old (Raul) Beteiro style," said a district office administrator. "He had his list of favorites and he used them to snitch on their fellow workers. As a result you had a very paranoid workplace and employee morale was way down. Nobody felt secure working there under those conditions."
Some board members weren't aware that the district was saving money by hiring part-time and retired teachers instead of the regular teachers that Cantu favored.
"The district doesn't have to pay retirement, vacation, sick leave or other benefigts or stuipends, just an hourly wage," said the adminitsrator. "Alford is undoing the mess left by Cantu and now I hear that some of the graduation rates in some GED classes are approaching 100 percent. Give her time."
Friday, June 17, 2011
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rita
10 comments:
Isn't Debbie also hiring her favorites?
If we are cutting costs then keep the retired and Part-time teachers and save on benefits.
I agree Debbie only hires her favorites, she has a long history of hiring favorites. Not to mention she has a long history of grievances that have been filed against her at BISD Human Resources.
I guess debbie hired the people that got the job done !! GREAT JOB MY BROTHER GOT HIS G.E.D THANKS....SO MUCH
Please clarify the sickleave payout. I believe upon retirement they have paid people their daily rate for 30 days of local sick leave. They have not paid more than that for years,in fact the last one to really benefit was Tom Keller; after he retired they limited it to 30 days.
Yea people thanks to Debbie Alford, things are getting done by educating all of our students that are dropping out of high schools, and getting modivated to go on to higher endeavors. At least she cares about the community, and the students that have slipped to the cracks.
I'm happy your brother was able to achieve his GED! This is because BISD had a great department in place already. Do you really think Debbie hired all the secondary certified teachers that were doing an excellent job already there???? Come on since when did u start drinking the kool-aide? We are discussing the FACT that Debbie hired additional personnel who are not qualified or certified to teach there. They are just supervising the GREAT teachers teaching there, while riding the gravy train! Since when does a first year certified teacher(Generalist E-4) gets a special assignment (Technology Specialist) with no credentials earning a hefty salary?? Your heart is in the right place, but you should get your facts straight!
I wonder if Cantu trained Karin Trevino because it sounds just like the way she tried to run Cummings! She had her list of favorites that snitched on their own coworkers and morale was at an alltime low. Nobody felt safe working there unless they were Karin's snitches! Oh boy, glad somebody had what it took to stop the harassment and the intimidation tactics.
The husband of a human resource person has worked there even though he may not be fully certified. Maybe certified to teach special ed. They have had him floating around for years without proper credentials.
June 20 @10:51 needs to pack it up already with the KTrevino bashing. The woman has been gone for months now, so leave her in peace already. Your insistence on picking on her further proves that there is more to this story than you care to disclose. Political vendetta, anyone? You want to talk about her and her favorites? What about CPresas and the meeting she held with her "favorites" at the home of a cummings teacher to discuss KTrevino. No, let's not bring that up... You won, KTrevino's gone, now let it go!!!!!!
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