BY Georgette Gilmore | Sunday, Mar 03, 2013 12:00pm | COMMENTS (11)
The Montclair Board of Education and the Montclair Education Association are currently at an impasse in contract negotiations. In addition, the MEA has begun to”Work to Contract,” a work action in which MEA members have stopped doing anything “beyond contract time and without compensation.”
Read our recap of the dispute here and tell us in our poll—Where do you stand?
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i have a big problem with this poll — the wording is very (mis)leading… the choice should just be, given all the various and complex factors, BOE or MEA…
“regardless of tax impact” paints the MEA as not caring about taxes…the wording for the BOE makes it seem as if the MEA does not believe the offer is above area average, or that they don’t think “taxes are high enough”…i mean your poll is basically saying “BOE, who doesn’t want to raise your taxes or MEA, who doesn’t care about you?”
plus, taxes can arguably be separated from a question of who is at fault or who should be chosen in the poll…one could make a moral/ethical argument, one could make an argument abotu who has made the ebst case to the public, etc. … in fact, it is the BOE’s job to fund schools, not keep taxes flat/down – that’s dereliction of duty…
of course all this ignores that this is kind of a false choice, too… there are other ways to keep taxes from increasing too much while still giving the MEA what they deserve…it also ignores that the system is broken and that we need more state funding so we are not faced with this false taxpayer vs. MEA scenario…
a bad job from Baristanet, the Fox News of Montclair
My stance is that this is an awful poll. This will serve to only divide our town rather than help create compromise. This is not BOE vs. Teachers. We are all stakeholders here, it is within our best interest to support both the professional educators in our town, as well as those who volunteer to serve on our behalf in the BOE.
On another note, these kinds of popular votes are dangerous. Imagine if you ran a similar poll in 1967. What the results were, versus what was the RIGHT thing to do.
See: Rice et al. vs. the Montclair Board of Education
http://www.njsba.org/sb_notes/may1304/NewSite/NewFiles/mont.html
The poll is not scientific, and people can vote even if they do not live in Montclair, but at least it asks the basic question. On the local blogs, we are hearing from a couple of vocal posters whose keep reiterating the same thing. They even look for posts on other unrelated topics, so they can re-post the same points that they have made over and over again.
I think that most townspeople want the same thing. Respected teachers who are fairly compensated without raising our taxes. If that can be achieved, then its a win win.
The Nj State DOE website has a great amount of comparative information. I’ve included some below. The percentile represents where the Montclair’s k-12 spending falls out of 106 schools in the state in its grouping for the ’11-’12 school year.
For Budget per pupil, Classroom instruction per pupil & Classroom salaries & benefits, we fall approximately in the 70%th percentile of highest spending..
We are in the middle of the pack on the salaries & benefits for support services & for the administration costs per pupil.
We fall down to the 11th percentile on classroom supplies.
I appreciate the BOE thinking about the school budget on a wholistic approach. The students need more allocated to other resources to get an overall quality education. I support their thoughtful strategic approach being taken.
Classroom instruction includes all costs (regular, special Ed, therapy, supplies, prof. development, etc). Refer to the nj doe website for definitions of the other categories & amounts.
This is the site with Montclair’s details:
http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/csg/12/csg.pl
On the Municipal side, there is not comparable web site. Instead, the townstat site was used to evaluate the salaries paid from the municipal budget. When evaluating all of the towns in Essex County, Montclair’s percentage of employees earning over $100k ranked #1, while our streets go unpaved and there is a lot of crime. I hope the new Town Council uses a balanced approach when approving the 2013 Municipal budget.
I also hope the Town Council encourages the Town Manager to use a balanced approach when negotiating the contracts up for renewal.
This poll stinks. Please stop directing us to baristakids.
I stand in Bloomfield. And I hope to see coverage of our special BOE meeting this week.
Agree with tryintosurvive: The town’s highly respected teachers should be fairly compensated and there is no reason that this should raise taxes. There is plenty of room in the surplus of the Board of Education’s budget to meet the teacher’s demands and still have a surplus in the budget into the foreseeable future.
The “regardless of tax impact” in the poll is very misleading. With Montclair’s percentage of municipal employees earning over $100k ranked #1 in Essex County and the schools ranked 99 across New Jersey, there is something very much wrong with this Town Council’s priorities.
What kind of poll is this? How about just asking for our opinions. Like- why the board is planning to spend over 700,000 a year from next year on to evaluate the teachers? Hiring staff just to do that task. Why do we have administration in each building? Isn’t that their job? And keep in mind that figure will only jump year to year. Why didn’t the board think of that before they blanketly signed onto newcomer MacCormick’s ideas? That is troubling.
I concur, misleading. Those who have somehow managed to fleece our schools of libraries, librarians and language programs while shouting the sky is falling then hoarding tens of millions of dollars at the expense of these programs should not be reappointed to BOE positions.
The “regardless of tax impact” in the poll is very misleading. Last year our town had a surplus of about 13 million dollars that the BOE magically didn’t know about. Meantime, many parents I know went out to purchase books on their own so their child did not need to continue sharing a basic text book. Shame on anyone who thinks that is acceptable.
Appointing Deans, or Czars at out Boutique schools who do not suffer from large acheivement gaps is a total waste of money. HELLO!
With Montclair’s percentage of municipal employees earning over $100k ranked #1 in Essex County and the schools ranked 99 across New Jersey, there is something very much wrong with this Town Council’s priorities
When you add up actual numbers, draw a diagram and look at reality – it adds up to children being left out in the cold.
When evaluating all of the towns in Essex County, Montclair’s percentage of employees earning over $100k ranked #1, while our streets go unpaved and there is a lot of crime. I hope the new Town Council uses a balanced approach when approving the 2013 Municipal budget.