School Board Proposes 77% Pay Increase for Themselves

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are school board members paid at all? In many states, it is a volunteer position. It should not be a paid thing.

I think they should get some pay, but I’m not sure how much. It’s a lot of time and responsibility for no pay at all.

They meet a lot and their meetings run long but I don’t see why their should get paid more just so every member can keep weighing in on every random honorary resolution or so people like Laura Jane Cohen and Karl Frisch can blather on in public about their own sexuality. It’s not like they use their time wisely or focus on academics or basic operations.

I hate when every single one of them spends the first 30 seconds of their alotted time one after another thanking everyone for their work and participation.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

And, put activists on committees to get the results they want.
Go listen to the speakers from the june 15 Board meeting.

[Anonymous]

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.

Are there many candidates vying for these positions? Are they better?

[Anonymous]

This is disgraceful; my job supports FCPS/non-teaching. I make 46k.

[Anonymous]

Insane.

[Anonymous]

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.

a school district the size of Fairfax county should hav3 a full time school board

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are school board members paid at all? In many states, it is a volunteer position. It should not be a paid thing.

are you volunteering?

[Anonymous]

The last raise seems to be 2015.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are school board members paid at all? In many states, it is a volunteer position. It should not be a paid thing.

are you volunteering?

They deserve some pay, but the meetings could be cut way back if they paid attention to what is important. I don't know how you pull back on recognizing organizations, but my recommendation would be to do those with a resolution that is read and no comments from SB members--even that is way too much time.

What about people like Keys-Gamarra who has missed so many meetings?

Maybe, they should pay them according to the meetings they attend.

Also, take a deduction for every lawyer they hire.

[Anonymous]

These people do not deserve to make $60K when all they do is accelerate the decline of FCPS.

[Anonymous]

I don’t mind the pay increase because the $32,000 they make is way too little for the amount of time they spend. They have lots of meetings and people email and call them and expect immediate constituent responses. I hope the pay increase means some regular people can now try for the job, not just connected politician wannabes.

The law limits when they can give themselves raises and they haven’t had one since 2015. There’s only 12 of them so it makes no sense to compare it to staff raises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mind the pay increase because the $32,000 they make is way too little for the amount of time they spend. They have lots of meetings and people email and call them and expect immediate constituent responses. I hope the pay increase means some regular people can now try for the job, not just connected politician wannabes.

The law limits when they can give themselves raises and they haven’t had one since 2015. There’s only 12 of them so it makes no sense to compare it to staff raises.

It’s not a coincidence that they waited until after the June 20th deadline to register to run in the fall elections had passed before they dropped this bombshell. So the additional candidates that you seem to think a higher salary might elicit won’t be the ones making these ridiculous salaries. It will more likely be incompetent chumps like Karl Frisch and flakes like Melanie Meren, who have been total failures in office.

These people should be utterly ashamed of themselves.