Broad Resident: Why?

So I'm doing various odds and ends on the computer and I remember, "Oh yeah, I was going to look at the Broad Foundation website and see if there was something about a Broad Resident." (As you may recall, the Superintendent's budget for next year includes $127,000 for an senior adminstrative staff position and what was termed "a Broad resident".) I had sent an e-mail to COO Don Kennedy asking about this issue but didn't get a reply yet.

We're in the poorhouse as a district. We have to close schools and we have to RIF teachers but guess what kids? We can help out some person (who has to have an advanced degree such as an MBA, MPP or MPA) to get a job that pays between $85,000-95,000 with full benefits) for two years. The website says:

"The Broad Residency subsidizes 50 percent of Resident salaries, and districts and CMOs pay the balance and provide benefits comparable to a full-time employee in a similar position. " "The Broad Residency expects that school districts and CMOs will hire Residents permanently in their current positions or promote them into more senior leadership posts."

And naturally, they like for the supervisor to be someone who was a Broad Resident and that would be Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. I would bet, absolutely bet, that in lieu of Dr. Goodloe-Johnson asking for a raise that she asked for and received this benefit.

From the website:

Broad Residents hold highly visible roles reporting to senior leaders like superintendents, COOs or top cabinet members. Residents are tasked with leading major projects that require superb analytical skills and the ability to manage projects and teams.
Residents earn starting salaries of $85,000 to $95,000 with full benefits and take on
projects including:

  • Strategic planning
  • Opening new schools
  • Overhauling district budgeting processes
  • Improving the management of human resources
  • Implementing new technology
  • Overseeing complex school accountability programs
There might be some of you who could find this defensible. "Hey, they're paying half, right?" "It's only for two years." "We might get someone really bright."

I find it totally indefensible at this point in time. The Alliance is not subsidizing the other half. Whoever this person is, he or she is not more important to this district than a teacher.

(I had written this last week but was waiting for a couple of replies from different people. I didn't hear from Don Kennedy, the Alliance said they weren't paying for half the salary and a couple of media people said, "Oh, they already have a Broad resident - Brad B - and so what? Timing is everything. This is the wrong time for this district to be putting out money like this. I still don't know what this person or the new "senior superintendent staff" person will be doing and why it was so necessary to give this to the Superintendent.)

Comments

Sahila said…
I didnt see this post till this morning - must be half asleep in my life!!!

Totally agree with your point of view, Melissa... and, what concerns me is that this isnt the first Broad resident the District has had, none of them have education-related qualifications, and several now have their feet permanently under the table as district staff...

Executive management is slowly and surely being stacked with Broad grads, this is costing our kids directly with money being used to finance this surreptitious management infiltration rather than going into the classrooms, the Board is being handed Broad-sanctioned material to read to influence its thinking and voting, and all of this is happening without a mandate from SPS constituents...
Sahila said…
Melissa - maybe you want to merge yours and Charlies Broad postings into one and post all the comments to the one entry? Can you do that?

I'm suggesting it because both you and Charlie cover important discussion points, they're totally related and they're in two separate locations on the Blog... makes sense to put them in one place and we might get a more cohesive, indepth discussion....
Respectfully - Sahila
Charlie Mas said…
There are some real limitations to this blog architecture. We can't post files - such as spreadsheets or .pdfs, it's hard to know when a new comment has been added to a thread, and we cannot combine threads or move comments around from one thread to another. There are others.

Just the same, this still works pretty well. I have enough confidence in progress and technology to expect that these limitations will be overcome soon.
Dorothy Neville said…
"it's hard to know when a new comment has been added to a thread, "

not true. subscribe to comments rss feed and use google reader or your other favorite aggregator. all comments are aggregated, but it isn't hard to figure out which thread it is from.

The other issues? Not likely that blogger will provide them. what you are looking for is the functionality of a forum, not functionality of a blog.
Meg said…
I don't understand it, either. And maybe I'm just being dense and/or perverse, but isn't there a hiring freeze? Families and schools are being told to make do with less. Shouldn't that apply throughout SPS, right up into the Superintendent's office (I do see that an exception may reasonably be made for something like the hiring of a new CAO.)?

The money itself is a comically insignificant portion of the budget, but I find it maddening that a teacher could be returned to the classroom and instead, someone who is not essential to district operations is being added in the central office.

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