Teachers in Marietta, GA were told this morning their pay will be cut

[Thickasabrick]

2% and they will be furloughed(sp?) 6 days. They did not want to cut teachers (classrooms are already 35+) so they are doing this. My sister the teacher is really worried about this affecting her retirement. I didn't want to tell her that by the time she retires, the fund will have been depleted - I hope that's not true but I worry about public worker's funds.

Is this one of the states where the republican governor is screwing around with the stimulus money?

[Donnachaidh]

1. They always short the teachers in this state

Georgia.

My son attends high school in Marietta, and the school ran a *gold drive* to pay for sports equipment in the beginning of the year. And they tell the kids they cannot *waste* paper and ink in the printers, because of budget deficits. It's a thoroughly screwed school system, when sports is more important than learning.

The way the economy is going, anyone still working should be grateful they have a job. Even the teachers. We have no idea what sort of cuts will be happening for the fall. :shrug:

[LWolf]

2. So my district

cut pay by 1.61% and 1 school day to adjust to the late-year budget cuts from the state last week. Neighboring districts have done the same, with some cutting more pay and significantly more days. Oregon isn't exactly a republican state, and our governor is a democrat.

A democrat who suggested that teachers "work for free" to finish the school year.

This has nothing to do with any stimulus money. As of the time we went on Spring Break a week ago, we didn't have any news from the state about how stimulus money would help, or not.

The ongoing discussion right now is how to fund next year. Whether to cut days off a school year already one of the shortest in the nation, how many jobs to cut, how many programs to cut.

What role the stimulus money will play in that decision is unknown. We won't have any numbers from the state until late May or June.

[noamnety]

3. When I turned on Obama's press conference the other day

he had already started talking. I caught "my economic stimulus plan has ALREADY saved teachers' jobs" and shut it back off. :eyes:

I haven't seen that here. What I saw here was we were given 2 or 3 weeks to write a grant for a community service project for the summer, we were told it could be used to employ 6-10 kids in the community, they had to be kids living in the poverty level, and they could get paid minimum wage. There was no information on what staff would get paid, it wasn't enough time to find out if we had enough kids who could commit to 8 weeks solid with no days off, not enough time to even write a grant, let alone get it approved all up and down our own chain (not to mention network in the community to find another organization that could employ us - and get it approved through their chain). I would have had one day to network, one day to write a grant, to even have a prayer of getting it approved anywhere in time for its due date.

On top of that, no teachers I know can commit to working for 40 hours a week during the summer - I'm not sure I even have 8 weeks in a row off this summer before I have to go back to work, and part of my off time needs to be realigning my curriculum, it's not really time off.

I tried. I tried to find another teacher who could maybe job share it with me. I had a taker, then she realized she couldn't commit to it because her (required) summer classes for her degree are going to be too unpredictable and time consuming to commit. I announced it to my class, I posted about it on my class blog, I suggested ideas and asked who was interested. I had one kid who expressed interested - after I'd already realized there was no way to make it work.

There's such a panic to "get the money spent NOW" for political reasons that it's a clusterf*** down at my level, and completely unusable as a program. My entire school had to opt out of it - there was no way to make it work without suitable time for planning.

And none of the money I've seen at my level is being used to "save teacher jobs." Maybe somewhere else it is. Not here.

[Thickasabrick]

7. Thanks for that but wow, that is so disheartening. Writing a grant

in 1 day? Really, really disappointing.

[noamnety]

15. Technically I had about two or three weeks to write it

but in the real world, people need that amount of time to discuss, coordinate and then approve it. I didn't have time to work with a local charity, I didn't have time to get permission from the school board to do projects even within the school and have access to the building.

And we needed more flexibility - 40 hours a week, and each student had to commit to no days off for the entire summer wasn't practical. 20-40 hours a week, 6-8 weeks at our discretion would have made more sense. And I needed time to coordinate with other teachers. The summer is when I do doctors' appointments, dentist checkups, all that. If I tried to run an entire program on my own, I don't know what I would have done if I needed a day off.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Republican Management in Georgia.....comes home to roost....

Maybe the Republicans can call one of the Super-Churches in Georgia and ask GOD to save them. Save them from 30 years of mis-management from the likes of Newt Gingrich.

[SmileyRose]

5. As far as I know Sonny is taking the money BUT

Sonny has FUBAR'd the state so bad it will be decades upon decades before we dig out. Altanta (Marietta is a suburb) is fairing bad but OK - but the rest of the state is in serious deep shit. About 1/3 of Georgia's counties have double digit unemployment, even in metro Atlanta. Some of the rural counties are over 20%.

Most states in this country are having their problems but Georgia would likely have managed reasonably well if we hadn't fired the last guy because he refused to cowtow to the racist hoard.

[RubyDuby in GA]

14. I live in Newton County - Covington, which is about 35 SE of Atlanta, but still considered Metro

Our unemployment rate for January was 11.3%, higher than the state average. There are no jobs to be found out there anywhere.

[SmileyRose]

17. I'm in Clayton and we are flirting with 12% officially.

but I think it's probably closer to 25% if you count the people who's benefits ran out already and sold most of what they own, or had it repo'd and moved in with someone else.

There's a few county's straight south of Macon with official rates over 15% and in reality close to 40% unemployment or what I call "barely employed" - quite frankly their economy has devolved into the barter system to get what they need.

[CreekDog]

6. I don't think a state can default on its pension obligations

even if the state goes broke.

states don't have a right to bankruptcy.

[Thickasabrick]

11. That is good to know - thanks. n/t

[Thrill]

8. I don't think Duncan has got the money out yet. He was talking about this other day

when talking about South Carolina

[msongs]

9. are they gonna cut the required curriculum by 6 days worth of content? nt

[Thickasabrick]

10. No - she was telling me those were the teacher planning days. They

will expect the teachers to do their planning on their own time now.

[malaise]

12. What happened to their contracts

They're not sacrosanct like the banksters and AIG people? n/t

[roody]

13. Our overpaid superintendent will be getting a raise. It is

supposedly in her contract. She doesn't even live in our town. Her family lives 600 miles away and she has to fly home to see them on weekends.

[malaise]

18. The teachers don't have contracts? n/t

[roody]

19. They do. There is no raise in them.

[dsc]

16. I live in the fastest growing county in the entire nation

and we are cutting teachers too. Any teacher in my district with a terminating contract (either a provisional licence or hired after sept 1) has been given a letter stating they aren't guarenteed a job. My school alone has 20 in that position.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. Cobb County remains one of the most Republican counties in the country, no?

Gingrich territory. Hell, they named a damn elementary school after the guys who lynched Leo Frank.

You get what you vote for, Cobb County.