A Snow Job
A Snow Job:
By Regan Benson
MAD synopsis: In 2009/2010 teachers in the Jefferson County School District worked 185 days but were paid to work 187. Paid snow days cost taxpayers $3.7 million.
The 3 snows days in Jefferson County Schools for school year 2009/2010, did in fact cost taxpayers 3,763,400 for 2 days of paid time off for teachers, that’s right folks 3.7+ MILLION dollars. Teachers are required to work 187 days per their contract agreement and in fact, only worked 185. You will find a calendar in the supporting documentation that reflects teachers scheduled to work 188 days, and due to the snow days, they only worked 185.
My fact finding consisted of information provided by Jefferson County Schools, the largest school district in Colorado. I did not have to request any records, all data was accessible on their public web site. I did however have to spend approximately 6 hours filtering, verifying and mathematically calculating their information, it wasn’t easy!
[...] A Snow Job [...]
October 11th, 2010 at 3:48 amTherefore what? You provide no action. Is it lawful to not pay the teachers? For snow days?
October 11th, 2010 at 3:41 pmJohn:
Teachers are on a 187 day contract to work, the 187 days arent all spent teaching either. This is a cost to the taxpayers when they dont work. Not sure where one might be employed that receives pay for snow days, are you? So yes it is in violation of their contract to be paid for two days not worked. The action should be the school district refunding the taxpayers, since they decided to pay the teachers for not working.
October 11th, 2010 at 9:09 pmBEJOHNGALT that is…….. refund the taxpayers!
October 11th, 2010 at 9:21 pmI can see SALARIED employees recieving the same pay for the days that the empolyer decides to have a working environment or not (including make-up days), but if you are contracted for X days for X pay…I am a contractor and I know for a fact if I didn’t work for 2 days (whether or not my clients excused it or not) my clients wouldn’t be paying for those days. If I charged them for that work not done, I would be looking for work elsewhere. The kids made up those days, did they not? So who was in charge during those days if the teachers didn’t have to be there? Did the school disctrict hire extra help on top of paying the non-worked days to cover those?
October 12th, 2010 at 6:30 pmTami, when the kids made up the snow days I would have to think the teachers were there in school teaching them.
Regan, Were the teachers paid for the snow days and the make up days as well?
October 13th, 2010 at 5:53 amThese are great comments and talking points. Here are the answers:
Teachers are contracted to work 187 days. The important piece here is they ARE NOT all teaching days spent in the classroom. The 187 days are a compilation of all days worked including time built into their calendar for “professional development” “modified contact days” and more commonly known as “comp days”. The calendar is not reflective of the time they are allowed in “personal paid leave time” as well. It is all right here within this “Ammended” teacher calendar put together by the district AFTER the snow days. http://www.jeffcopublicschools.org/calendar/2009_2010_teacher%20calendar.pdf
REGARDLESS of the teaching time, the bottom line is they DID NOT work the days they are contracted to work, it has nothing to do with “class room time”. Teachers DO NOT spend 187 days in the classroom because of their negotiated contract, which exacerbates how much time IS NOT being spent teaching. Taxpayers foot the bill and the bill is in excess of 3.7 million dollars.
Yes, Tami, Jefferson County schools spends in my best guess, millions on substitute teachers. They have to pay someone to be in the classroom for all these teachers “comp days”. They wont share with me how much they spend on this piece of compensation.
October 13th, 2010 at 5:38 pmThe teacher calendar link I included above is now disabled. This school district is deceptive in its “back patting” on transparency. Does not change the fact that taxpayers are due a refund!
October 20th, 2010 at 4:14 amThere are so many inaccuracies here. It’s very sad. We have many serious issues to address in public education; we shouldn’t be wasting our time on these non-issues.
October 21st, 2010 at 5:28 pmJeffco teachers did work their contract year. Snow days were made up. And none of that counts all the hours teachers spend evenings, weekends, and summers working for Jeffco kids.
Let’s talk about real issues!
The facts are there Karen, there are no inaccuracies what so ever. 3.7 MILLION dollars is NOT a non-issue, especially when teachers insist on a contract and we have a district that does not enforce the contract, this type of “discretionary” spending doesnt work when your boss is coming to the taxpayers with yet another plea as to why our schools dont have enough “discretionary” dollars, the infamous mill/bond heart string attempt.
October 24th, 2010 at 6:04 pmI agree with Regan, it all adds up. The school district needs to look at each area of spending one at a time and start controlling it and being responsible. And as taxpayers, we need to vote people out of position that maintain a fudiciary to teachers unions who have become the great protectors of incompetancy. Also eliminate those elected officials that refuse to eliminate administrative waste before cutting educational programs and/or asking for more taxpayer money.
December 16th, 2010 at 10:46 pmAs for the snow days, I would just like to get my money’s worth from the employees that are taking it. No need for a refund, just do what was agreed upon. If it is not addressed specifically in the contract, it should be.
Actually the snow days were made up. Students, in fact, were not happy to come to school for an additional day at the end of their spring finals schedule. In fact, teachers were required to come back a day early from their spring break-a day that was earned as “comp time” that was granted for a variety of reasons: as a result of evening parent teacher conferences, back to school nights, attendance at graduation, attendance at activity nights, attendance at curriculum nights, etc. Because these required evening events are not posted on the district calendar but on individual school calendars, you might not have all of the facts. In the last several years the district has mandated when these comp days might be taken; however, schedules for the aforementioned events are set in curriculum areas. In fact, at the high school level minutes are counted to make sure that seniors’ diplomas are valid; thus, the contracted days are an important number to meet. Thus, schools work diligently to make sure this occurs. It’s easy to audit individual school schedules as you can access them via individual school web sites. As for the District calendar and scheduled snow days, a committee proposes these to the School Board who has the final say. Prior to this their has been input from the community.
March 12th, 2011 at 4:16 amPlease edit the last sentence: “Prior to this there has been input from the community.” Thank you.
March 12th, 2011 at 4:18 amCoulter Sherwood,
You are trying very desperately to twist this situation. It happened ok, and furthermore there is BOE discussion about it in June minutes. This mistake is on schedule to repeat itself again this year with the support of the superintendent. Why do you think that teacher calendar link I left here under my Oct.13th comments has beed disabled? Teachers DO NOT earn comp days as they deem necessary, you need to pull out the contract and read that comp days are BUILT in to the calendar. Kids made up snow days, employees did not. This IS NOT a conversation about hours and minutes for students, this is strictly a conversation about contractual obligation for the adult employees. In addition, this was a district wide over payment to all employees, not just teachers. Please write Cindy Stevenson and specifically ask her these 3 questions: Why did you pay employees for not working their contractual days last year? Why are you doing that again this year? How much does this mistake cost taxpayers?
March 15th, 2011 at 7:46 pmThen, please report back to us with her response, because she told me she wouldnt talk to me about it.
supt@jeffco.k12.co.us, Cindy Stevenson.
Dear Cindy Stevenson,
I am concerned that as a taxpayer my money isn’t being spent wisely.
It is important that the money used to fund our schools be used frugally. I am concerned about paying all employees for not working their contractual days last year? It seems to me that the money used to pay these employees, which I am sure amounted to quite a bit of money, could be used for other services that would benefit our children, such as outdoor lab.
I would like an explanation on how this mistake occurred and what is going to
June 6th, 2011 at 4:44 pmbe done to stop this from occurring in the future? Transparency is so important so that abuse and corruption does not occur. Taxpayers need to know what is happening so that we can know that our money is being spent wisely. Thanks for taking the time to read this e-mail and am looking forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Carol Baum
[...] A Snow Job [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 10:16 pm