Central Office Cuts
There was a time when I sympathized with the PPS superintendent and board as they made what I believed to be difficult budget cuts. My views on that changed while I was working at the PPS Central Office.
The superintendent doesn’t have to make all of the cuts she’s proposing. District administrators haven’t heard the expression take care of your pennies and your dollars will take care of themselves. Complain about district administrators holding meetings at hotels and a PPS Communications representative will be there defending the practice because it’s just a drop in the budget bucket.
Just as predictable as the annual sky is falling cry is the manner in which the cuts will be made.
Pay attention to all Central Office cuts. Superintendent Smith has recommended cutting 5 Central Office Communications positions. It won’t be Robb or Sara or Lolenzo or Matt…the lowest level staff will be cut. Staff that make less than the cost of a hotel contract for administrator meetings.
7 comments
Too bad PPS doesn’t have a real budget the public can peruse. Cutting PE and librarians — is that for real or a smokescreen? This is where the tendency to go with the school reform movement really comes into play. How much are we spending on the testing, the workshops etc. to teach teachers who have taught for 30 years how to teach, the academic coaches, the testing coordinators, the administrators who work with all this, and the outside consultants (?)? Actually, we should be adding to athletics, electives and activities in the middle schools. How poor can we make the education in those poorer parts of Portland before people in those areas actually begin to pay attention to the real issues? Probably a lot worse yet. Too damn bad.
I was tired when I wrote the post last night but want to clarify…it’s not that I doubt PPS has some real budget challenges or that I think there’s an easy fix but how can I as a taxpayer take the challenges seriously when PPS doesn’t? How much money was wasted on the high school redesign process, opening an office of focus schools when we don’t need one, paying counselors to forecast freshmen for Marshall, then Madison, Franklin or Cleveland and now Marshall, paying a communications employee to engage in social networking? We even have an office of system planning but where’s the planning?
The superintendent increased the funding for Community Involvement and Public Affairs from $3,329,710 in 09/10 to $4,543,605 in 10/11. Seriously, couldn’t the money have been better spent elsewhere?
Carrie,
Where’d you hear that counselors were paid extra for forecasting? My check must have gotten lost in the mail.
Counselor, I didn’t mean counselors were paid extra. I meant extra counselor time was spent on forecasting because of the changes for incoming freshmen.
Carrie: Hank Harris recently appointed Bonnie Gray as the Interim Director for Diversity Workforce just as predicted. How in the world would PPS justify for this position now that they are facing the budget crisis. This position pays $100 grant a year.
There is no money to hire a diverse workforce. Kurt could not even get his plan approved to train HR on diversity. Courageous Conversation on Race has done more harm than good. PPS spent over .5 million on this project. Let’s cut to the chase. Carole and her A-team do not know what they are doing. I am suggesting for Carole’s superintendency to survive, these are the people she needs to let go: Hank Harris, Sarah Allen, Robb Cowie, Jollee Patteron, Cliff Brush and most importantly Zeke Smith. We will be able to save PE with these cuts.
OOps you forgot Joanne Mabbott who had devastated special education. What about Laurie Harris they just appointed her to assistant director of curriculum (a new position). She was a lousy special ed. administrator so they promoted her.
Yes, I completely agreed with you. Joanne Mabbott should go too. She is the cause of the currentl lawsuit filed by Stacy Sibley who is asking for $770,000 for defamation and retaliation from the district. Joanne botched that whole situation by asking Stacy to hire her friend and by demoting her. Xavier left a huge legacy by promoting Joanne and now promoting Laurie Harris. He did enough damage just in the short 10-month tenure and did not have the courage to stay to finish up what he started out to do. Joanne needs to go, Jennifer Jackson, her assistant, needs to go. Laurie Harris needs to go and a few more of the Special Ed Program Administrators. Sara Singer and any staff associated with the HS Redesign need to go. Communications department needs to be cut into 1/2. Enrollment Transfer Center staff can be cut into 1/2 since there will be limited transfer… Then, PPS can save the 66 P.E. teachers.
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