Follow Ups

Still waiting for information on the Math Summative Assessment.  The questions I posed on this mystery assessment were not that hard so I'm puzzled as to why it is taking so long to answer them.

As you may recall, the Superintendent recently promoted/created positions within SPS.  I had wondered (as did a few of you) what the salaries for these positions are:

Barbara Robbins, Director of Project Management, $136,612
Guillermo Echeverria, Director of Continuous Improvement, $133,325
Cari Campbell, Director School and Community Partnerships, (will not start this position until end of May), $112,154
Eric McCurdy, Executive Director Athletics, $139,628.

I will gently say that I believe those to be fairly healthy salaries for public jobs.

Also, there is a FAQ being worked up for the Math Adoption.  That's great but given that the vote is a week from today, a little tardy.  Hopefully, they will be available by Friday so that parents who want to go talk to Board members will have them in hand.

Comments

Libby said…
Healthy salaries? You're too kind, Melissa. I work in the public sector and, while these salaries are comparable to other Director level positions, consider that the current vacancy for the Medical Director for Community Health Services with the Public Health Dept posts a salary range beginning at $139,680. This is for a physician, mind you. I'd be interested to know if these folks have PhDs and/or highly specialized expertise (on par with MDs) to warrant such generous salaries.
5/28/14, 5:04 PM
Anonymous said…
Pretty high salaries, I think. I saw the posting for the Director of School and Community Partnerships, and the range was $87,214 - $120,453. Pretty big range. I hope it's justified, and we get a lot out of this (and the other) positions.

- Nice Work
5/28/14, 9:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Those salaries are not fully costed, right? Typically, benefits can be +30%?

Question: there are two NEW positions and that add-on is beyond $250k. Because these are two persons, 2 contracts, does it keep below the threshold of the $250K board approval required threshold?

Can the Superintendent decide he needs 12 more deputy sups, at $130k/each, and just go hire (for argument's sake)? And the Board gets to say nothing?

I really can't believe there will be 'continuous improvement' or that 'project management' is really going to help my kids learn. Color me cynical. More steak (teachers) less sizzle (glass palace suits) please.

Didn't a community member on the blog do a pure head count of folks at the glass palace earning more than $100K+ and/or the number of 'cabinet members' from, say, 2008 to now? Has it mushroomed, or am I imaging things?

The School and Community Partnerships position, what happened to Courtney Cameron (she was manager), or Clover Codd, wasn't she doing this too? Why did it go from
being a manager position under Holly Ferguson to now a director position?

The athletics position, it was a manager position under operations. Why must it too 'inflate' in status to that level? What is the need, what is the justification, what is the value-add? We're prinipal's not listening to the guy, so they figured they had to give him a better job title and more money? I'm being serious, this escalation of high-level managers together with the proliferation of high-level jobs seems to be pretty rampant. The overall admin costs compared to teacher costs seems to be skewing again. Of course, the budget guys can always reclassify 'mentor coaches' and everything/anything else as 'direct costs', but, unless they are in a school teaching actual students, they are not direct costs. Color me...

Waste Not
5/28/14, 10:55 PM
Charlie Mas said…
There is no relationship between responsibility and pay. I'm not sure what forms the basis of pay, but for the head of athletics to get this kind of compensation throws all rational models out the window.
5/29/14, 6:42 AM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
5/29/14, 8:45 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Reprinted for Anonymous (NO anonymous comments):

How can the district justify the huge promotion for the Executive Director of Athletics position? "This totally blows my mind, especially when I was told that due to budget cuts to the athletics department, I had to pay $50 for my daughters varsity sport duffle bag. While in the years prior they were given to the other athletes. Now it makes sense where the money went. I suppose now the player participation fees are going up to help off set the salary for this position."
5/29/14, 9:42 AM
Anonymous said…
Wow - ok so we can all sit here and complain about the ridiculous of this, but is there anything we can do? I mean this seriously, though I know everyone has banged their head against the SPS wall for eons now.
As a taxpayer, I'd much rather see that huge chunk of money going into classrooms not admin coffers.

Email campaign? Letter Campaign? Enough already - oh sure "continuous improvement"..in what? getting high salaries???! Geesh!

reader47
5/29/14, 9:50 AM
Anonymous said…
Courtney Cameron left the District to work at Seattle Housing Authority. I wonder if her role (Manager, not Director as the press release indicated) will be re-filled. The new director has to have someone to direct, right? I think there are something like 2-3 people in that group now. I always thought Director-level people oversaw bigger groups, or multiple groups. Lot's of queens, not enough worker bees in my opinion...

- Nice Work
5/29/14, 1:28 PM
ChrisGuerra said…
An instructional piece is presented for somebody you never know something about this particular subject and also learn more. Or it's writing by someone supporting or criticizing certain ideas. Writing on social networking is much like writing for that masses. It's written bearing in mind the motive of their attract everyone. Whereas, academic writing service isn't for masses however for a particular group.
7/26/17, 3:25 AM
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