School Board Proposes 77% Pay Increase for Themselves

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

The current school board did less than 20-30 hrs over the past four years even discussing academics. The pay raise is not necessary. They spend most of their time congratulating themselves and giving recognition to others. The county does not need to provide 'Karen' pay.

The way these people think is that if you give them a 33% raise they will talk 133% as long when it comes to resolutions and open-ended discussions about equity policy. They will not spend one more minute on academics or operations.

They are not supposed to be involved in operations. That’s for the superintendent. They are policy and oversight.

That’s such an idiotic statement. Any reasonable oversight would focus on the oversight of FCPS’s academic and operating departments. Instead we get a non-stop competition among a bunch of blowhards over who is the most empathetic and committed to an “equity” agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

The current school board did less than 20-30 hrs over the past four years even discussing academics. The pay raise is not necessary. They spend most of their time congratulating themselves and giving recognition to others. The county does not need to provide 'Karen' pay.

The way these people think is that if you give them a 33% raise they will talk 133% as long when it comes to resolutions and open-ended discussions about equity policy. They will not spend one more minute on academics or operations.

They are not supposed to be involved in operations. That’s for the superintendent. They are policy and oversight.

That’s such an idiotic statement. Any reasonable oversight would focus on the oversight of FCPS’s academic and operating departments. Instead we get a non-stop competition among a bunch of blowhards over who is the most empathetic and committed to an “equity” agenda.

A good board should hire a superintendent that they trust and empower them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

Only reason is they can’t run a meeting. There’s no company that would allow 5 hour meetings with so little accomplished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

The current school board did less than 20-30 hrs over the past four years even discussing academics. The pay raise is not necessary. They spend most of their time congratulating themselves and giving recognition to others. The county does not need to provide 'Karen' pay.

The way these people think is that if you give them a 33% raise they will talk 133% as long when it comes to resolutions and open-ended discussions about equity policy. They will not spend one more minute on academics or operations.

They are not supposed to be involved in operations. That’s for the superintendent. They are policy and oversight.

That’s such an idiotic statement. Any reasonable oversight would focus on the oversight of FCPS’s academic and operating departments. Instead we get a non-stop competition among a bunch of blowhards over who is the most empathetic and committed to an “equity” agenda.

It’s not an idiotic statement. It’s state law

[Anonymous]

I once considered running and spoke to a current member about it. It was easily 40-50 hours / week, and a decent chunk of them would take me away from my kids (weekday evenings and some weekends). But there’s also all-day work sessions, so can’t have a day job either. It was untenable, especially for such meager compensation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

Only reason is they can’t run a meeting. There’s no company that would allow 5 hour meetings with so little accomplished.

This X1000. They are wasteful and inefficient precisely because they don’t know what they should be doing, don’t know how to run efficient meetings, and purposeful chew up time because they want to discourage others from running for their seats.

[Anonymous]

Offering 100k is not going to make it any easier for the lower working class people to fundraise and run for SB - they'll still be at a large disadvantage against the usual candidates with wealthy spouses well-connected across their neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

The current school board did less than 20-30 hrs over the past four years even discussing academics. The pay raise is not necessary. They spend most of their time congratulating themselves and giving recognition to others. The county does not need to provide 'Karen' pay.

The way these people think is that if you give them a 33% raise they will talk 133% as long when it comes to resolutions and open-ended discussions about equity policy. They will not spend one more minute on academics or operations.

They are not supposed to be involved in operations. That’s for the superintendent. They are policy and oversight.

That’s such an idiotic statement. Any reasonable oversight would focus on the oversight of FCPS’s academic and operating departments. Instead we get a non-stop competition among a bunch of blowhards over who is the most empathetic and committed to an “equity” agenda.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire School Board approach to education policy needs to be done away with. What are the benefits to having an elected board who only get their position through name recognition and political party fundraising?

We'd be far better off having real professionals with real degrees who are hired competitively into Board-like roles to represent each district. This would also remove bias and conflict of interest as each representative would likely be independent instead of having hidden agendas for their children's pyramids.

I remember when the SB wasn’t an elected position and so many people were thankful that it was changing to an elected one.

That was decades ago and whatever hopes people had that elected members would turn out to be an improvement have long since been dashed. You could not come up with a worse group of people than the current members - and the way in which they are going about increasing their own salaries is just more evidence of this. They stick kids in trailers and want to be paid more than many full-time employees. They are disgusting.

“They stick kids in trailers.”

No, Fairfax County residents do that when they vote against taxes (meals tax anyone?). The construction budget isn’t nearly enough to fix the facility problem, and redistricting is the only thing that makes residents more unhappy than taxes.

We are being taxed to death in the country. You can’t raise my personal
Property taxes double digits every year and expect me to vote for an additional
Meals tax on top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire School Board approach to education policy needs to be done away with. What are the benefits to having an elected board who only get their position through name recognition and political party fundraising?

We'd be far better off having real professionals with real degrees who are hired competitively into Board-like roles to represent each district. This would also remove bias and conflict of interest as each representative would likely be independent instead of having hidden agendas for their children's pyramids.

I remember when the SB wasn’t an elected position and so many people were thankful that it was changing to an elected one.

That was decades ago and whatever hopes people had that elected members would turn out to be an improvement have long since been dashed. You could not come up with a worse group of people than the current members - and the way in which they are going about increasing their own salaries is just more evidence of this. They stick kids in trailers and want to be paid more than many full-time employees. They are disgusting.

“They stick kids in trailers.”

No, Fairfax County residents do that when they vote against taxes (meals tax anyone?). The construction budget isn’t nearly enough to fix the facility problem, and redistricting is the only thing that makes residents more unhappy than taxes.

We are being taxed to death in the country. You can’t raise my personal
Property taxes double digits every year and expect me to vote for an additional
Meals tax on top.

So let me guess. You expect that only you should be getting ahead and improving your quality of life at the cost of others? Taxes pay for everyone else in civil service roles from local to state to federal. Saying no to taxes means you want to get richer while others, specifically teachers, get poorer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire School Board approach to education policy needs to be done away with. What are the benefits to having an elected board who only get their position through name recognition and political party fundraising?

We'd be far better off having real professionals with real degrees who are hired competitively into Board-like roles to represent each district. This would also remove bias and conflict of interest as each representative would likely be independent instead of having hidden agendas for their children's pyramids.

I remember when the SB wasn’t an elected position and so many people were thankful that it was changing to an elected one.

That was decades ago and whatever hopes people had that elected members would turn out to be an improvement have long since been dashed. You could not come up with a worse group of people than the current members - and the way in which they are going about increasing their own salaries is just more evidence of this. They stick kids in trailers and want to be paid more than many full-time employees. They are disgusting.

“They stick kids in trailers.”

No, Fairfax County residents do that when they vote against taxes (meals tax anyone?). The construction budget isn’t nearly enough to fix the facility problem, and redistricting is the only thing that makes residents more unhappy than taxes.

We are being taxed to death in the country. You can’t raise my personal
Property taxes double digits every year and expect me to vote for an additional
Meals tax on top.

So let me guess. You expect that only you should be getting ahead and improving your quality of life at the cost of others? Taxes pay for everyone else in civil service roles from local to state to federal. Saying no to taxes means you want to get richer while others, specifically teachers, get poorer.

The problem is not the lack of taxes, the problem is the way they choose to spend it.

Look at Gatehouse first. "Equity?" Hire five new specialists at big bucks--supervised by someone who has proven not to be the best administrator. All those five will need staff. They will create paperwork for teachers and more "training" instead of planning time.
Money could be better spent in the classrooms on staff that actually works with students.

More "Equity." Pay "consultants' $500K to write gibberish of words. Again, $500k could be used in schools. Tutors would make more sense.

ETC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With next to no advance notice the School Board is proposing to award themselves 77% pay increases to over $60K at tomorrow night’s meeting.

They’ve clearly turned what was intended to be a part-time job into a full-time job by scheduling meetings at times that discourage people with real jobs from seeking office. But they haven’t done anything that warrants this type of pay increase. It seems obscene.

My understanding is it's more than full-time (40 hours) on average, including many evening/weekend hours. If they gave an additional 77% pay increase the following year to get the salary to over $100k maybe you'd start to see a more diverse set of candidates (including parents) who would love to serve but can't otherwise justify the massive pay cut they'd be taking in addition to the time away from their families in evening/weekend time slots.

I don't think a school board seat for a 180k student district should be a part-time role. Maybe that was a reality at some point in the past, but doesn't seem they could do the job responsibly today if they only worked 20-30 hours a week.

The current school board did less than 20-30 hrs over the past four years even discussing academics. The pay raise is not necessary. They spend most of their time congratulating themselves and giving recognition to others. The county does not need to provide 'Karen' pay.

The way these people think is that if you give them a 33% raise they will talk 133% as long when it comes to resolutions and open-ended discussions about equity policy. They will not spend one more minute on academics or operations.

They are not supposed to be involved in operations. That’s for the superintendent. They are policy and oversight.

That’s such an idiotic statement. Any reasonable oversight would focus on the oversight of FCPS’s academic and operating departments. Instead we get a non-stop competition among a bunch of blowhards over who is the most empathetic and committed to an “equity” agenda.

It’s not an idiotic statement. It’s state law

No it isn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire School Board approach to education policy needs to be done away with. What are the benefits to having an elected board who only get their position through name recognition and political party fundraising?

We'd be far better off having real professionals with real degrees who are hired competitively into Board-like roles to represent each district. This would also remove bias and conflict of interest as each representative would likely be independent instead of having hidden agendas for their children's pyramids.

I remember when the SB wasn’t an elected position and so many people were thankful that it was changing to an elected one.

That was decades ago and whatever hopes people had that elected members would turn out to be an improvement have long since been dashed. You could not come up with a worse group of people than the current members - and the way in which they are going about increasing their own salaries is just more evidence of this. They stick kids in trailers and want to be paid more than many full-time employees. They are disgusting.

“They stick kids in trailers.”

No, Fairfax County residents do that when they vote against taxes (meals tax anyone?). The construction budget isn’t nearly enough to fix the facility problem, and redistricting is the only thing that makes residents more unhappy than taxes.

We are being taxed to death in the country. You can’t raise my personal
Property taxes double digits every year and expect me to vote for an additional
Meals tax on top.

Property taxes aren't going up. Your property value is going up because this is a desirable place to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I once considered running and spoke to a current member about it. It was easily 40-50 hours / week, and a decent chunk of them would take me away from my kids (weekday evenings and some weekends). But there’s also all-day work sessions, so can’t have a day job either. It was untenable, especially for such meager compensation.

exactly. We want qualified people to run and raising pay helps do that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire School Board approach to education policy needs to be done away with. What are the benefits to having an elected board who only get their position through name recognition and political party fundraising?

We'd be far better off having real professionals with real degrees who are hired competitively into Board-like roles to represent each district. This would also remove bias and conflict of interest as each representative would likely be independent instead of having hidden agendas for their children's pyramids.

I remember when the SB wasn’t an elected position and so many people were thankful that it was changing to an elected one.

That was decades ago and whatever hopes people had that elected members would turn out to be an improvement have long since been dashed. You could not come up with a worse group of people than the current members - and the way in which they are going about increasing their own salaries is just more evidence of this. They stick kids in trailers and want to be paid more than many full-time employees. They are disgusting.

“They stick kids in trailers.”

No, Fairfax County residents do that when they vote against taxes (meals tax anyone?). The construction budget isn’t nearly enough to fix the facility problem, and redistricting is the only thing that makes residents more unhappy than taxes.

We are being taxed to death in the country. You can’t raise my personal
Property taxes double digits every year and expect me to vote for an additional
Meals tax on top.

Property taxes aren't going up. Your property value is going up because this is a desirable place to live.

The pp wrote “personal property taxes”, as in vehicles. I’m not sure what they meant by it increasing by double digits.