It looks like tough times may be on the horizon for education. A strong potential for deep austerity cuts, less SPLOST money coming in, families with less money to spend on school fundraisers, a high level of home foreclosures and looming legislation that has the potential to cut into school funding and more.

But what is going on at the Hall County Central Office? They just keep spending it seems. And not really on the students either. I think this message from some school employees summed it up better than I can:

‘think the general feeling with most teachers is that none of us are on a witch hunt here, but we all believe that the Supt. and his boys and girls up there at the CO are all getting richer and richer while the schools (meaning students, teachers, buildings etc.) are doing without. All at taxpayers expense, and we are fed up with it.’

That basic feeling has been shared with me and with others many, many times recently. I honestly have been surprised at the numbers expressing support for a change and disgust with what is going on that have started communicating such.

These are some of the things we are talking about (all created in the past 2 years):

Somewhere in the area of 18,000 dollars in gas money for the retired principal and mentor of the current supt to go along with his no competition, no application 2 year job placement.

Approximately 36,000 dollars a year for a radio celebrity ‘mentor’ to work with a handful of students. Good for someone’s PR I guess.

A new ‘rigor’ specialist position to the tune of 95,000 plus dollars a year.

A new ‘competency’ specialist position paying 80,000 plus dollars a year.

The IB trainings and travel mentioned in Iorek’s blog. Not a cheap undertaking.

The raising of the Human Resources Director to another created higher pay scale position. (pay raise of about 16,000 dollars there for the same basic job)

The raising of the position of Technology Director to the position of Executive Technology Director (a higher pay scale) for a principal who really does not have half the qualifications that the prior Director had (and was pulling in over 100,000 a year plus a signing bonus before the promotion that skips him up 2 levels at tax payer expense) not to mention that the prior Director comes back at half time to boot to train him.

A new technology position promotion for an assistant principal (previously the assistant principal of the new Executive Director who also has no real technology background) who was already pulling in around 80,000 dollars for 10 months.

Administrative interns at schools so that there are now in effect 3 administrators in some schools where there used to be only 2 (and only 2 are needed). Takes a teacher position out of the classroom.

The massive expansion of the Central Office facility to take over the entire building at 711 Green Street AND the impending opening of Central Office South. Not cheap.

A Leadership Development Institute that the superintendent’s uncle heads up on a contract basis, yet positions are continuously filled with people not from the program.
(Anyone notice how close Newton County is to Social Circle? Just wondering.)

Contract work for the superintendent’s old friend and retired curriculum director from Social Circle doing who knows what?

A parade of ‘new and improved’ programs and the training that goes with it. Price some of these out sometime.

Several created half time positions for retired principals, including one that no one can produce a job description for and another one in the works for some sort of superintendent’s assistant kind of thing.

System jobs for a bunch of board member’s relatives.

A full time (I must admit I made a mistake here in an earlier comment, this one is not a half time position) IB Coordinator position pulling in a salary of around 110,000 plus dollars. (not bad for overseeing a program that hasn’t even been authorized yet and will serve about 30 kids)

But here is the other side of things I hear:
We keep asking for class size waivers to go over state class size limits in our schools. Some schools don’t always have enough books for their students.
Arts programs in schools are given a dollar or less per student for the year.
Facilities in some schools are not up to par in many ways.
Under funded English for Language Learners and Student Services programs are now the norm.
And the saddest thing of all is the absolute fear expressed by people of this administration. The fear of retaliation for speaking up or questioning anything.

One more point - This district has been in the embarrassing position of being in Needs Improvement for YEARS now. At one time we were the only one north of Atlanta I believe (others have caught up as the bar raises). What an embarrassment! This is due to one thing folks and one thing only. District leadership. The same basic school board has been presiding over this for years. This same board handpicked the current supt. to carry on with more of the same dressed up in more expensive clothes. How long are our children going to have to pay (figuratively and literally) for this type of mismanagement and short sighted, insecure leadership?

Also again I ask:

I also would like to see this report made public:
Bill Matthews, former Jones County schools superintendent, who gave a presentation on the Georgia Department of Education’s review of Hall’s system leadership in light of East Hall Middle being in its eighth year of "needs improvement." Schools that don’t make "adequate yearly progress" for two consecutive years under No Child Left Behind are deemed as needs improvement.

"WHAT A POST"....hallconcern....
don't you just know that there will be a lot of whispering and "water cooler talk" going on at central office today.

i am glad that you brought up the "central office south" subject because i don't think many people are even aware of this.

i also want to make sure that people understand that the new Executive Director of Technology and whatever else they added to the title, could have been promoted to the level of Director, but for some reason he went all the way to Executive Director (info from the hallco.org website). and remember, this is for a position that he is not qualified for in the first place. i'll tell you what. if i was one of those current directors (special eduction, administrative services, student services, etc) unless i was scared to death of the supt., i would be causing some noise about why this new exec. director was promoted so quickly. maybe they are not scared, maybe some of the current directors are close to retirement and they know that their not rocking the boat will let them retire and then come back at a made up 49% position. COUNTING THE SUPT., THERE ARE NOW ONLY (4) FOUR PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE SYSTEM WHO ARE HIGHER UP IN THE PECKING ORDER THAN THE NEW EXEC. DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY.

SORRY, MY MISTAKE, I FORGOT that qualifications and pay scales and logic don't have any place in the administration of hall county schools. who you know and how well you know them and how much they OWE you or how indebted you want them to be to you are the most important things.

You wrote: "Unless the legislature blocks it, another round of 'austerity' cuts are planned for Georgia school systems."

Shouldn't that be: "Unless the legislature blocks it, another round of 'austerity' cuts IS planned for Georgia school systems"?

Funding for teaching grammar has been cut too much already.

Grammar instruction in the schools? Are you kidding? Grammar doesn't fit in with the educational whims of the current administration. (It also might necessitate that a few dollars be spent on textbooks. Oh, the horrors!)

Interesting.

JustAnotherGuy, are you sure? By using "cuts is planned", "is" would be referring to something singular. Yet, "cuts" is plural. Therefore it is correct to use "are".

"Unless the legislature blocks it, another round of 'austerity' cuts are planned for Georgia school systems."

Is correct. Thanks - GA high school student

Joshua, JustAnotherGuy's grammar was correct. "Unless the legislature blocks it, another ROUND (singular) of austerity cuts is planned for Georgia school systems." "Cuts" happens to be the object of the preposition of in this case.

Thanks- GA Elementary teacher

Ah, I just noticed that. My mistake.