Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Contrary to Superintendent McGinley's Claims, the Express-Times Reveals that EASD Superintendents Get Higher Salaries than Most Other School Districts

Superintendent McGinley makes $165,000 annually 
and according to her contract, cannot be fired without being 
given another high position within the school district.




Posted by: Noël Jones


Check out this article by Colin McEvoy of the Express-Times which reveals that seven out of eight superintendents in the Easton Area School District make more than the average salary of $129, 581 in the state of Pennsylvania. This is in direct contrast to Superintendent McGinley's statement at a recent school board meeting defending the administration's decision to give themselves a raise after firing 72 teachers last year, claiming that a wage-freeze would cause us to lose good administrators because they already get less than administrators in other districts.


The next school board finance committee meeting is tomorrow:


Thursday, Jan. 20th
Easton Area School District Education Center
1801 Bushkill Drive
Easton, PA 18040
6:30 P.M.


The next board meeting is Jan. 27th, same place and time.


Thoughts?

13 comments:

tunsie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Corrections: Her name is McGinley. And the board meeting isn't until the 27th.

noel jones said...

tunsie, sorry--had to delete your comment--no personal attacks, please.

Anon--thanks for the corrections--the meeting tomorrow is a finance committee meeting, so it may come up then, but I have corrected the name spelling and title of the meeting and added the actual board meeting date as well.

tunsie said...

I yuv u noel....tunsie

Anonymous said...

Noel:

McGinley, Roberts and Kish are the only ones making at or above what Superintendent's make in PA. Marie Guidry, the Business Manager, is also well compensated.

The few remaining central office administrators and all the principals make far less than their counterparts in other districts. They make what teachers make and, in some cases, less. Those are the facts.

Also, the administrators did not give themselves a raise. This is controlled by the school board who recognizes the fact that most of the district administrators are not well compensated by any standard or metric you use.

Had the Teacher's Union renegotiated their contract with the board, no layoffs would have been necessary. If they refuse again this year, more layoffs will occur.

BullVon said...

The teachers DID negotiate their contract with the School District. The School Board voted and approved the contract.
It's like beating a dead horse!
Then you argue that the teachers should revise their agreement by reducing their salary and accessories, but there is no suggestion that perhaps administration employees should do likewise?

Again, the teachers negotiated, the Board approved.

noel jones said...

Anon 8:26--so that's 4 administrators + 7 out of 8 superintendents--or are you saying that the Express-Times got it wrong?

Does anyone know how many administrators there are in total?

Piaggio said...

Just to deviate for a second from the salary issue, has anyone noticed that on snow days the EASD has closed all the offices? As a retired EAHS teacher, in the past when classes were called off because of weather, all the central office administrators, building principals and secretaries were required to report to work (albeit maybe an hour or so later depending on conditions) or lose that day's pay. (The only people who worked on snow days were custodians and maintenance people.) The only option to not reporting to work and getting paid was to use a vacation day. Why the change in policy? Keep in mind that as of today (Wed) the district has used 4 days and Friday is looking good for #5. Is the district closing the offices to save money by not paying the secs? If so, with a snow day on Friday, that would be one full week the district would not have had to pay its secretaries. Any comments or info that can be respectfully added? BTW, the story rumor circulating today is that the SD was NOT closed because of the weather.

Piaggio said...

Correction - the sentence in brackets should have read "... the only people that now work on snow days are..." Sorry.

tunsie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

The issue is really that principals make just a little more than teachers and they have to work all year, talke vacation in the summer and spend a lot of nights and weekends at events and meetings ----- so why be a principal??? Now, as for central administration they are well compensated. Does the superintendent in EADS hava a doctorate? NO.

Here the real probelm I have with school adminstrators. They aren't doing the most important job they are there for --- teacher evaluation!!! Tenure DOES NOT PROTECT incompetent teachers. That is a misconception. Bad teachers can be fired for lack of performance. EASD teacher evaluations are a joke. They rate them all perfect. Can't be! LEt's make the evaluation results public -- you can redact the names (for now) but let's see the scores. Parents can tell you the good ones just from homework assignments, tests, etc.

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with the statements left by Anonymous. McGinley is a TERRIBLE and is being paid WAY too much for not doing anything. She doesn't even communicate with the teachers in the district. She has sent ONE email this entire school year to the staff!

No, she doesn't have her doctorate but the Easton taxpayers are footing the bill for her to get one! And guess where, PENN! And...they are also paying for her commuting and hotel costs associated with her earning this degree. That "cannot fire clause" is also ridiculous! Who negotiated that into her contract? She was a kindergarten teacher, spent 6 months as a principal, and suddenly gets the position of Superintendent? It makes NO sense!

You are also correct about the teacher evaluations in EASD. The administration does a terrible job with evaluating teachers because they are LAZY! People like to think that the union protects terrible teachers. WRONG! Administrators are the ones to blame when bad teachers stay in the profession. Read the research, this problem with teacher evaluation isn't unique to Easton but it is a problem.

Easton is on a downward spiral into becoming one of the worst districts in PA! The administrators that are running the district are completely incompetent and inexperienced. Unless they completely "clean house" and bring in a full new team of district administration, there is no hope for EASD! :(

noel jones said...

This information that administrators are responsible for teacher evaluations and that they have the ability to fire underperforming teachers even if they are union members is new to me. I will be looking into this...

Please see my latest post on the 5 school board positions up for grabs this year, and start encouraging people in your neighborhoods to run for the board!