“District Administrators” $200,000 plus; teachers only get $61k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Fairfax County Public Schools pays its teachers a starting annual salary of $61,747 as it gives 44 of its district administrators over $200,000 per year. Meanwhile, student performance is abysmal, + teachers are paying for their own classroom supplies.


Is this fair and equitable?

What exactly is a DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR? There is no such position in FCPS. There are building administrators such as principals and asst principals. You can use administrator interchangeably with principal or AP.

No one in Gatehouse is considered an “administrator.” There are superintendents, asst superintendents directors, and coordinators. None of these people would also be called an “administrator.”

Clarify, OP. Who exactly are you talking about?

There absolutely are adminstrators at the district level in any school system. These are people such as assistant superintentdents, executive principals, program directors, etc. whose jobs require an adminstration & supervision endorsement on their professional licenses. They are all known as district level administrators. The collective bargaining unit for these employees is called the Fairfax County Federation of Principals, Supervisors & Administrators, and plenty of people from Gatehouse are members.

If you are still unsure about this, Google "school district administrator" and you can read all about it.

-DP

Please say how you know that asst superintendents and executive principals are members of FCFPSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This argument doesn't make sense at all. Why would the starting salary of a teacher compare to a District Administrator who most likely has many more years of experience under their belt in addition to higher levels of responsibility and mostly likely education?

You can look up any FCPS employee's salary online - it is public knowledge and there are a large number of classroom teachers earning over $100K who are 10 year teachers or more.

I think $61,747/year starting salary for a 39-week contract with 3-6% raises each year is actually quite fair. If the payrate remained the same and teachers worked a 52-week year like most other salaried professionals, that starting salary would be over $82K.

Now, if you want to have a discussion about the amount of crap that teachers have to deal with from parents, students, and administrators, then that is another conversation with another set of solutions other than throwing more money at teachers to make all of the crap "worth it."

The question is not about their experience. The question is what do they do for the school system that benefits our students? And, what does their office bring to benefit our students.

Just take a look at Reid's PR department. Look at all the videos posted about her. Look at all the messages from her touting her comings and goings.

Please list what Reid and her people have done to make FCPS better for our students.

I fail to see how the following have made it better:

Expensive legal cases.
A bumbling roll out of a new school. While it may not affect all of FCPS, it is a premium example of lack of common sense leadership.
A terrible redistricting process that accomplishes little and delays/ignores the boundaries of the new school--which will/should have a direct effect on several high schools.
A confusing calendar with almost no five day weeks for the first months of school.

There's more.
Feel free to add her accomplishments and those of her well-paid staff.

Your participation/interaction with FCPS has always been optional. If you don’t like it….

Dp. We can what? Stop paying taxes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Fairfax County Public Schools pays its teachers a starting annual salary of $61,747 as it gives 44 of its district administrators over $200,000 per year. Meanwhile, student performance is abysmal, + teachers are paying for their own classroom supplies.


Is this fair and equitable?

What exactly is a DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR? There is no such position in FCPS. There are building administrators such as principals and asst principals. You can use administrator interchangeably with principal or AP.

No one in Gatehouse is considered an “administrator.” There are superintendents, asst superintendents directors, and coordinators. None of these people would also be called an “administrator.”

Clarify, OP. Who exactly are you talking about?

There absolutely are adminstrators at the district level in any school system. These are people such as assistant superintentdents, executive principals, program directors, etc. whose jobs require an adminstration & supervision endorsement on their professional licenses. They are all known as district level administrators. The collective bargaining unit for these employees is called the Fairfax County Federation of Principals, Supervisors & Administrators, and plenty of people from Gatehouse are members.

If you are still unsure about this, Google "school district administrator" and you can read all about it.

-DP

LOL! I don't think first PP has a good grasp of vocabulary.
This might help:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/administrator#synonyms

But, I am still waiting for someone to post the value of these people. There are way too many of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with it. Entry level employees make the least. Experienced executives make 200K+. Makes sense to me.

Okay. Please tell me what these "experienced executives" are doing that makes them so valuable to FCPS.

I mean, if you don't know what executives such as a CFO or a COO do, I'm not sure I'm going to waste my time explaining it to you, but I will ask you who the hell do you think you are insinuating that what they do isn't valuable? Where do you get off?

The nerve of you. Wow, just wow.

The problem is that the “executives” here aren’t making schools more efficient or productive. They are doing the opposite by creating unnecessary work for teachers and insisting we implement idealistic and unproven pedagogical theories (such as inclusion) that are practically impossible to make function smoothly in the classrooms. They spend millions on contracts for flawed resources that we can’t use, and are willing to replace a sharp knife with a dull one for “reasons” that turn out to be false. No, schoology does not easily integrate with SIS to make grading easier for teachers.

Currently, Gatehouse is pushing teachers to integrate AI into the classroom and we have a new contract with chatgpt - that push comes from people who want to sell tech, not teach children. It is a corporate interest, not an educational one.

Gatehouse folks occupy a sphere that doesn’t truly “govern” the parts of education that are actually still working for your kids. Teachers work around the BS handed down to us to be effective.

Gosh, this all makes my blood boil.
Ed tech is already such an expensive and harmful failure. I can’t believe they are INCREASING spending on it when it really needs to be gotten rid of. Why “teach” kids AI when so many of them lack basic numeracy, literacy, writing and oral communication skills??
I’m not Catholic but if I had to do it over again right now, my kids would be attending Catholic or other traditional school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never want to be an administrator of any sort and generally think all districts are too top and central office heavy.

BUT I do not have an issue with a district level admin making significantly more than an entry level teacher. - a teacher

Agree. It’s mostly not that those salaries are inappropriate, but that the org is too top heavy and those with with high salaries are often making things worse more than they are helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with it. Entry level employees make the least. Experienced executives make 200K+. Makes sense to me.

Okay. Please tell me what these "experienced executives" are doing that makes them so valuable to FCPS.

I mean, if you don't know what executives such as a CFO or a COO do, I'm not sure I'm going to waste my time explaining it to you, but I will ask you who the hell do you think you are insinuating that what they do isn't valuable? Where do you get off?

The nerve of you. Wow, just wow.

The problem is that the “executives” here aren’t making schools more efficient or productive. They are doing the opposite by creating unnecessary work for teachers and insisting we implement idealistic and unproven pedagogical theories (such as inclusion) that are practically impossible to make function smoothly in the classrooms. They spend millions on contracts for flawed resources that we can’t use, and are willing to replace a sharp knife with a dull one for “reasons” that turn out to be false. No, schoology does not easily integrate with SIS to make grading easier for teachers.

Currently, Gatehouse is pushing teachers to integrate AI into the classroom and we have a new contract with chatgpt - that push comes from people who want to sell tech, not teach children. It is a corporate interest, not an educational one.

Gatehouse folks occupy a sphere that doesn’t truly “govern” the parts of education that are actually still working for your kids. Teachers work around the BS handed down to us to be effective.

Only a complete moron doesn't understand that our children need to understand how to use GenAI to succeed in the job market they'll one day enter.

Your list of complaints is a weird, superficial collection of tropes. Remember, these people are experts in this. You're just a dumb parent suffering from Dunning-Krueger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s like this in most industries. The worker bees aren’t paid what they’re work. See healthcare for an easy comparison.

It’s very unfair to me that an HR person is paid double what a teacher makes.

A lot of this administration bloat closely follows the exploding amount of IEPs and 504s. And if you want to see some real bloat- look into how much they spend on lawsuits.

Why is that?

[Anonymous]

OP is so cute. She thought she had rage bait or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with it. Entry level employees make the least. Experienced executives make 200K+. Makes sense to me.

Okay. Please tell me what these "experienced executives" are doing that makes them so valuable to FCPS.

I mean, if you don't know what executives such as a CFO or a COO do, I'm not sure I'm going to waste my time explaining it to you, but I will ask you who the hell do you think you are insinuating that what they do isn't valuable? Where do you get off?

The nerve of you. Wow, just wow.

NP. You must be kidding. FCPS isn’t run like a successful corporation. It’s run like an aging utility that gouges consumers and survives because it has a near monopoly on a service.

Just look at how its decisions about capital investment are based on a queue developed almost 20 years ago. Any public company that made decisions about where to invest in property, plant, and equipment based on a 20-years-old business plan would face a shareholder revolt. Senior management would be out of their jobs in a heartbeat. But that’s the crap we have to expect from FCPS, and none of these highly paid officials do anything about it.

You can see this in action tomorrow when the School Board approves their CIP with a minimum of meaningful input from senior staff. Lots of folks just going through the motions and then expecting to collect a big check for their mediocrity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never want to be an administrator of any sort and generally think all districts are too top and central office heavy.

BUT I do not have an issue with a district level admin making significantly more than an entry level teacher. - a teacher

Agree. It’s mostly not that those salaries are inappropriate, but that the org is too top heavy and those with with high salaries are often making things worse more than they are helping.

I can't speak to the quality of particular leaders in FCPS; I'm happy with our kids' schools. But think about the budget size, facilities, employee and student numbers. C suite and the level below in the private sector earn a TON. Public sector and nonprofits can't compare with that, but there has to be some decent level of compensation to attract leaders. Otherwise, no one would want to work as leaders in these organizations!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never want to be an administrator of any sort and generally think all districts are too top and central office heavy.

BUT I do not have an issue with a district level admin making significantly more than an entry level teacher. - a teacher

Agree. It’s mostly not that those salaries are inappropriate, but that the org is too top heavy and those with with high salaries are often making things worse more than they are helping.

I can't speak to the quality of particular leaders in FCPS; I'm happy with our kids' schools. But think about the budget size, facilities, employee and student numbers. C suite and the level below in the private sector earn a TON. Public sector and nonprofits can't compare with that, but there has to be some decent level of compensation to attract leaders. Otherwise, no one would want to work as leaders in these organizations!

Provide some evidence of strong leadership.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never want to be an administrator of any sort and generally think all districts are too top and central office heavy.

BUT I do not have an issue with a district level admin making significantly more than an entry level teacher. - a teacher

Agree. It’s mostly not that those salaries are inappropriate, but that the org is too top heavy and those with with high salaries are often making things worse more than they are helping.

I can't speak to the quality of particular leaders in FCPS; I'm happy with our kids' schools. But think about the budget size, facilities, employee and student numbers. C suite and the level below in the private sector earn a TON. Public sector and nonprofits can't compare with that, but there has to be some decent level of compensation to attract leaders. Otherwise, no one would want to work as leaders in these organizations!

It’s a bit different in education. Educational leadership is usually attractive because it means you get to exit the classroom. People don’t rise to administration because they are strong teachers. Sometimes it’s the inverse. Strong teachers remain in the classroom and mediocre teachers use admin certification as a way to get out.

We don’t have a problem attracting people to administrative positions. We have a problem keeping people in classrooms. That alone tells us a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never want to be an administrator of any sort and generally think all districts are too top and central office heavy.

BUT I do not have an issue with a district level admin making significantly more than an entry level teacher. - a teacher

Agree. It’s mostly not that those salaries are inappropriate, but that the org is too top heavy and those with with high salaries are often making things worse more than they are helping.

I can't speak to the quality of particular leaders in FCPS; I'm happy with our kids' schools. But think about the budget size, facilities, employee and student numbers. C suite and the level below in the private sector earn a TON. Public sector and nonprofits can't compare with that, but there has to be some decent level of compensation to attract leaders. Otherwise, no one would want to work as leaders in these organizations!

It’s a bit different in education. Educational leadership is usually attractive because it means you get to exit the classroom. People don’t rise to administration because they are strong teachers. Sometimes it’s the inverse. Strong teachers remain in the classroom and mediocre teachers use admin certification as a way to get out.

We don’t have a problem attracting people to administrative positions. We have a problem keeping people in classrooms. That alone tells us a lot.

Except for the one who was a producer for OPRAH Winfrey Show. One of the top people in FCPS. Oprah was a great show, but this is hardly good experience except for producing videos and communications with the community. Oh, and skipping #35.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with it. Entry level employees make the least. Experienced executives make 200K+. Makes sense to me.

I'm sure you are good with it gatehouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If our administration was so good why is the boundary study and the opening of the new school such a confusing mess?

FCPS is a mess. If you have a good school thats nice but sadly it's a needle in the haystack these days. FCPS is filled with administrators who do nothing and don't want to be bothered dealing with every day problems that impact students and teachers. Even the administrators at the school level have their blinders on-they pretend to see nothing and know nothing NO ONE in FCPS cares enough to address the major issues....they just keeping saying everything is awesome in FCPS. It's NOT look closely.