May 4, 2015 Special Meeting

As always, these are my opinions only and not the opinions of the Pendleton County School Board or any other individual Board members.

Amendment to District Staffing Requests

I requested an amendment to district staffing from our April 23, 2015 Special meeting.  I did not realize that SES was planning on using one of their Title 1 positions as a teaching position this coming year.  The information (staffing worksheets and email) given to the board did not reflect these plans for the 2015-16 school year.  The Board voted 3-1 to add an SES teaching position back in with Nordheim, Utz, and Bertram in favor of this change in district staffing.  These additions would keep the teaching “add-ons” the same as last year.

 I shared with the Board some information on class sizes, administrative positions, and administrative pay throughout Kentucky.  These tables are from data from the Kentucky Department of Education.

 

	2014-15 Student Membership	2014-15 Number of Teachers	Ratio Teachers to Students	Proficiency
Pendleton	2375	142	17:1	No
Powell	2379	157	15:1	No
LaRue	2348	150	15:1	Distinguished
Knott	2346	153	15:1	No
Union	2294	156.5	16:1	No
Lewis	2287	150	16:1	No
Hart	2263	164.14	13:1	Proficient
Casey	2233	147.92	15:1	Proficient
Magoffin	2145	145.85	15:1	No

 This table compares our district to other districts with similar student size.  Compared to other districts, you can easily see that our number of teachers is much less than other districts.  It is also worth noting that the Proficient and Distinguished districts in this table had a lower teacher to student ratio.

 The results from our TELL Kentucky Survey from this year are still not back.  When teachers were asked in the 2013 TELL Survey “if class sizes are reasonable such that teachers have the time available to meet the needs of all students?”, only 41.9% felt this way.  This is down from 73.7% in 2011.  In a statement from Kentucky’s Commissioner of Education (2013), Dr. Terry Holliday stated that “when the results of the TELL Kentucky Working Conditions Survey reflect a high rate of teacher satisfaction with their working conditions, there is a high correlation to student achievement.”  Cutting more teachers is not going to get our district to proficiency.

 Elimination of District Positions

 Our district instructional spending has dropped from 57% to 53% of our general fund (a reduction of roughly $800,000) from 2011 to 2015.  Over this same four year period, our district administration spending went from $1.8 million to $2.9 million.  This $1.1 million difference is important because we overspent $700,000 from our general fund last year (confirmed by our 2014 audit).  This continued overspending is reflected in our monthly bank statements when compared to last year.

I attempted at the May 4^th meeting to reverse the current trend in spending priorities.  I made a motion to reduce a fraction of our overspending (about $500,000) by the elimination of 7 administrative positions.  My motion was mostly rejected by the Board, with a verbal commitment by the Superintendent to eliminate a couple of the positions.  Making this motion was not taken lightly, and I would not wish these necessary decisions on anyone.  Our district revenue will simply not support an administration the size of our current team.  Our superintendent position is the 16^th highest paid in the Commonwealth out of 173 public districts.  This position and our assistant superintendent positions have a combined salary of over $260,000 plus other “benefits”. 

KDE Superintendent Salaries

District Name	2013-14	2014-15	District Budget (2013)	Proficiency (2013-14)
Jefferson County	$276,000	$276,000	$1,200,671,000	Needs Improvement
Pikeville Independent	$152,982	$204,942	$13,117,000	Distinguished
Boone	$184,831	$187,872	$200,785,000	Distinguished
Ft. Thomas Independent	$160,607	$175,000	$28,122,000	Distinguished
Hardin County	$169,731	$174,671	$154,191,000	Proficient
Grayson County	$152,598	$173,389	$39,660,000	Proficient
Newport Independent	$170,000	$170,908	$22,367,629	Needs Improvement
Kenton County	$162,962	$167,494	$140,419,000	Proficient
Oldham County	$160,020	$164,181	$150,538,000	Distinguished
Bullitt County	$144,430	$162,845	$140,916,000	Proficient
Taylor County	$160,905	$161,601	$24,317,000	Proficient
Daviess County	$152,830	$161,083	$114,678,000	Distinguished
Mayfield Independent	$165,961	$160,998	$17,272,000	Proficient
Lewis County	$155,362	$158,469	$23,274,000	Needs Improvement
Campbell County	$135,675	$153,647	$69,750,000	Distinguished
Pendleton County	$129,970	$151,561	$26,610,000	Needs Improvement

This table lists the highest paid Superintendents in the Commonwealth.  Jefferson County is the largest district and includes the Louisville area.  Because of the many challenges of such a large district, I would expect it to be difficult to get to proficiency.  Notice the number of Proficient and Distinguished Districts making the top 16 districts having the highest paid Superintendents. 

KDE Superintendent Salaries

District Name	2013-14	2014-15	Size of Budget 2013	Proficiency 2014
Pendleton	$129,970	$151,561	$26,610,000	Needs Improvement
Bracken	$119,800	$119,800	$11,095,000	Needs Improvement
Grant	$117,536	$118,953	$37,138,000	Proficient
Carroll	$111,121	$118,000	$24,263,000	Needs Improvement
Harrison	$115,747	$116,848	$27,626,000	Proficient
Williamstown Independent	$110,000	$111,100	$10,464,000	Proficient
Pendleton Assistant Superintendent		$109,000*
Augusta Independent	$107,719	$108,649	$3,369,000	Needs Improvement
Owen	$104,675	$107,702	$18,375,000	Needs Improvement
Walton Verona	$96,480	$97,920	$16,174,000	Distinguished
Robertson	$100,000	$87,000	$5,009,000	Needs Improvement

               *This data is from Pendleton County Schools website pay scales and admin index

This table compares our Superintendent & Assistant Superintendent’s salaries to other Superintendents in our local area.  As you can see, Superintendent Strong is paid well considering our district size and proficiency rating.  It is interesting that both Harrison and Grant counties are bigger districts and considered proficient and yet their superintendents make much less.  What is even more alarming is that Pendleton County is also paying an Assistant Superintendent $109,000, which is comparable to what other Superintendents are making.  Board member Elmer Utz mentioned that according to the KDE School Report Card our district’s expenditures on instruction had gone down on by 1 million dollars.  Now, the public  knows where the money is going. 
 

	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	13 Year Diff.
Student Total Number	2847	2831	2761	2776	2825	2673	2623	2598	2557	2499	2460	2421	2375	-472
Number of Certified Staff	206.2	204.7	201.5	206.5	214.4	218.5	206	210	203	186	168.9	171	175	-31.2
Number of Teachers	178.6	178.7	175.5	180.5	187.4	189.5	179	183	177	160	144.9	146	142	-36.6
Number of Admin. Positions	27.6	26	26	26	27	29	27	27	26	26	24	25	33	+5.4

This table is from data from our KDE website.  This table tracks number of PC teachers, students and administrators back to 2002. Last column shows the difference. In a nutshell, we've lost 472 students, 36.6 teachers, but gained 5.4 administrators. 

Summary

A shift in spending priorities that puts the focus on instruction is needed for Pendleton County Schools.  This shift needs to be balanced against a school budget that does not spend more than it takes in as revenue.  My actions have been labeled as “reckless”.  I want to reassure my community that I am not reckless, but I am attempting to balance our school budget while keeping the focus on quality classroom instruction.