Woohoo!! Now the PAUSD teachers can afford to live close to the community they serve!

It is worrisome the Closed Session Agenda has discussion of many personnel items of Administrators. with no indication of what they are about.

At a past meeting the superintendent suddenly announced he was moving the Assistant Superintendent, and Special Education will now be overseen by two other Assistant Superintendents with no Special Education background. No public earning or discussion was allowed. The only warning was a tweet that he was making changes based on Orgametriccs, a consultant. This week in the Superintendent’s Board Update, he writes Of the background of the consultant, but it has nothing to do with how Special education should be managed. The Superintendent has no idea why the original changes were made. He is setting Special Education backward to where we started.

Superintendent also writes Special education had its last meeting of the year and made a success wall. Not scientific. All anecdotal. Was the meeting open to the public? He writes there is a new Director of Special Ed from the County. Given the County is where fired or told to resign PAUSD staff have gone, that is not comforting.

Are there new contracts and public job descriptions for this reorganization and new roles?

We need some transparency.

So we are increasing cost of personnel, but don't have a draft of next year's budget and school is ending soon? Is there even a reliable performance review system for these 80% of fixed and growing expenses?

In March the district said JUDICIOUS SPENDING for next year, and tossed around words like variety, class size, tradeoffs, belt-tightening and practices to free up money. So where exactly is the money for salary increases coming from? Are students negatively affected? If cuts are coming, shouldn't we know about it by now? When is the next budget study session? Where's the transparency in administration and the board?

Pa weekly - what has been the compound rate of salary raises for the teacher's union over the past 5 years? 10 years? How does that compare to the rate of inflation? What about for the PAMA?

The average Pausd teacher makes more/day than the average tech worker in the Bay Area. What has been the rate of increase in pay for the average tech worker in the Bay Area over the past 5 years? 10 years?

Don't forget bonuses!

It is beyond ridiculous to tie the "managers'" salaries to those whom they are supposed to "manage." Cart before the horse anyone? At Pausd, anything goes...way to go school board! Corruption and incompetence.

Regarding the PAMA members the article says "...and the difficulty of creating an effective, performance-based compensation system for the group"

How is it that our school district has been in existence for many decades but there is not a performance based compensation system in place for top level administration and district employees? This is almost incomprehensible.

Tying the administrative salaries to the Union negotiated salaries provides a clear conflict of interest for those negotiating with the union. It also provides no incentive or reward for those employees doing an outstanding job as they get the same increase as the employee who is marginally contributing. Silicon Valley became successful not by giving everyone the same raise or salary but rewarding those who preform the best. The same should be true for our school administrators and staff. The fact that this takes effort and will cause some folks to be uncomfortable should not deter a performance based approach.

Why does the teachers union prevent differentiation for pay based on qualifications and performance, rather than solely on seniority and educational credits? So a HS calculus teacher is paid the same as those w lesser qualifications, even though his/her skills are in high demand, including in private industry? And the teachers union resists any evaluation of any individual's performance as well...

Thanks teacher's union, for preventing any means to single out and compensate accordingly those who actually serve our students well.

A good pay scale range for PAUSD teachers would be $115,000 (new) to $170,000 per year + benefits depending upon time employed/tenured.

Then there would be no need for a union.

Unions only exist because employers are screwing over the workers.

Good companies/employers don't have unions to contend with.

The average tech worker in the Bay area, including Google and Facebook and the like, makes $122,000. Pausd teachers make more per day than that average Bay area tech worker. Should teachers really make so much more than tech workers, as your post suggests? On what are you basing your figures? Wishful thinking?

Perhaps other workers would like to be so "screwed over" to get tenure, pensions, the summer off, and more pay than the average tech worker in the Bay area.

From a humanistic standpoint, teachers (the really good ones) do more for society as a whole than some tech worker creating disposable APPS and semi-recyclable hardware.

A sugestion...fewer H1-B visas & more teaching credentials.

This will ideally improve American education and reduce further immigration from abroad.

Ok, sure, so teachers are entitled to something that they think they deserve, whether or not they earn it. A value judgement, on their terms. And we should all pay for it.

@cover up where do you work?

You Palo Altans complain more than anyone. You have some of the best schools in the country. Take it easy. Take care of your teachers.

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The schools are not that great it’s the students that are pre-tutored, disciplined And sleep deprived. Where the students actually have to learn the content , our schools fail them. There is no proactive action from teachers as students slide down words. And even if parents ask for support it rarely comes. I have seen this cycle repeat itself year after year. It’s a subset of students that make the teachers and school look good, not the other way around. Just ask the students! Of course if you don’t want to see if you won’t.

Forgot to include the tag line
Incompetence and corruption

This is a joke! I just tried phoning the district office and received voicemail all over the place, including the front desk. Oftentimes, no one answers the front desk phone. Teachers get raises but PAUSD cannot afford to pay a human to answer the front desk calls?

A raise will not improve the quality of teaching in PAUSD. I heard a teacher complain that he is not paid enough, that he is overworked! They have THREE MONTHS off of work per year! AND this teacher takes time off during the school year to travel!

Pa is right. As I have Paly alums, I can attest to the fact that while there are some great teachers at Paly, many are not good and it's our students who pick up the slack through tutoring or parental help. I think the worst is that some teachers incur more stress on our students through their disorganization and errors. Many teachers should have a lesson in the rigor of college admissions. Students can be working their tails off and some teachers still dole out C grades. AP teachers are the worst. They use the "AP" designation to equate with "too much homework and figure it out on your own"; they think they don't need to teach because the students will figure it out. My children have found that their professors are superior to Paly's AP teachers: more structured, no cancelling tests (that were scheduled to early), no errors on review sheets, no surprises, no cramming info just to regurgitate and forget.