[Elwood Community Network commentary distributed 3/18/11]
Given the fact that [the March 17th Elwood School District] Board of Education Meeting was one minute shy of four hours, and given the fact that forty-five residents spoke at the first Residents Remarks period alone, it is going to take quite some time to wade through my twenty-five pages of notes which I took at the meeting.
But, one event was so dramatic as to warrant a kind of early headline.
As most of you know, Superintendent Peter Scordo, like administrators and teachers, is employed under a contract with the Elwood School District. Therefore, the District has a legal obligation to pay him certain amounts for his services, and he has periodic wage increases built into his contract, just as do administrators and teachers.
Last night, in a step that was a clear indication of not only Mr. Scordo’s leadership but his devotion to the students of this District, he announced that he was volunteering to take a total freeze of his salary for the 2001/12 school year.
Now, the reality is that the compensation of any superintendent of schools is a small part of the expenses of a school district, so his generous action alone cannot redeem our District from the economic problems imposed by escalating wage and benefit costs of labor agreements, or from the irresponsible action by Governor Cuomo to not only fail to keep up with increasing expenses for school districts (many of which are generated by NY State itself, and some of which come from private companies like energy providers, and bus companies) but to actually cut State aid to schools from last year’s already low levels.
But, Mr. Scordo has now provided a mark of excellence that has to be considered for similar action by the source of the greatest personnel compensation expenses for any school district, namely its teachers union.
It is only our teachers union which has the powerful economic impact for our 2011/12 school year to mean the possible difference between substantial cuts in programs as well as young teachers, instead of trying to preserve as much as we can for the students and for the budding careers of our most recent teacher hires. Teachers are the life blood of a school district, and the cuts which we need to consider, given escalating costs and State cutbacks, would be tragic.
The community owes Mr. Scordo a great deal of gratitude for what he has already accomplished for us in terms of improvements, and for the steps he has put in place to get even better, but now we have even more reason to be grateful for his financial sacrifice for the good of our students and for the fiscal integrity of our District.
We must wait to see what our teachers union may do to take their own steps towards budget redemption.
Given the fact that [the March 17th Elwood School District] Board of Education Meeting was one minute shy of four hours, and given the fact that forty-five residents spoke at the first Residents Remarks period alone, it is going to take quite some time to wade through my twenty-five pages of notes which I took at the meeting.
But, one event was so dramatic as to warrant a kind of early headline.
As most of you know, Superintendent Peter Scordo, like administrators and teachers, is employed under a contract with the Elwood School District. Therefore, the District has a legal obligation to pay him certain amounts for his services, and he has periodic wage increases built into his contract, just as do administrators and teachers.
Last night, in a step that was a clear indication of not only Mr. Scordo’s leadership but his devotion to the students of this District, he announced that he was volunteering to take a total freeze of his salary for the 2001/12 school year.
Now, the reality is that the compensation of any superintendent of schools is a small part of the expenses of a school district, so his generous action alone cannot redeem our District from the economic problems imposed by escalating wage and benefit costs of labor agreements, or from the irresponsible action by Governor Cuomo to not only fail to keep up with increasing expenses for school districts (many of which are generated by NY State itself, and some of which come from private companies like energy providers, and bus companies) but to actually cut State aid to schools from last year’s already low levels.
But, Mr. Scordo has now provided a mark of excellence that has to be considered for similar action by the source of the greatest personnel compensation expenses for any school district, namely its teachers union.
It is only our teachers union which has the powerful economic impact for our 2011/12 school year to mean the possible difference between substantial cuts in programs as well as young teachers, instead of trying to preserve as much as we can for the students and for the budding careers of our most recent teacher hires. Teachers are the life blood of a school district, and the cuts which we need to consider, given escalating costs and State cutbacks, would be tragic.
The community owes Mr. Scordo a great deal of gratitude for what he has already accomplished for us in terms of improvements, and for the steps he has put in place to get even better, but now we have even more reason to be grateful for his financial sacrifice for the good of our students and for the fiscal integrity of our District.
We must wait to see what our teachers union may do to take their own steps towards budget redemption.
