Jenney continues to receive raises as FBISD lays off teachers, closes schools, cuts vacations.

When Dr. Tim Jenney of Fort Bend ISD was hired in 2006, his starting pay was $240,000. He has had a three percent increase in salary at least twice.  Once was in 2009 when his salary went to over a quarter of a million dollars.  Some board members cite undocumented increases in academic advances and continue to claim that Dr. Jenney points FBISD in the "right direction".  According to a January 2009 Chronicle article, Dr. Jenney claims to be in a "very supportive" environment - and that he is - at least on Lexington Avenue in the administration building.  Elsewhere his support runs thin.

Those teachers who did not lose their jobs in Fort Bend suffered other losses.  The calendar year has changed significantly over the past three years.  Teacher vacations continue to get cut shorter and shorter, and not because of T.E.A.'s new official public school start date.  One of the oldest traditions in Fort Bend, Fort Bend County Fair Day, was lost to district employees.  Not that employees couldn't attend Fair Day, they just didn't get the day off to take their students or families to the event.  Dr. Jenney, being from Virginia, couldn't understand the backlash from the community and teachers when this tradition was gone.  Now the day is being offered back on one of the calendar options this year.  But nothing comes without a price, and if teachers opt to keep Fort Bend County Fair day, they lose at least two more. The days before Thanksgiving is one of them.  Either way, FBISD employees will lose more vacation time and, as usual get little or no say in the matter (other than choosing when they will lose their vacation time).  Either way, Dr. Jenney and the board of directors will be in a position to claim that whichever calendar is chosen, was chosen by the employees.

Future layoffs and perhaps the loss of one of the district's oldest high schools, Willowridge, loom in Fort Bend's uncertain future.  But one thing is for sure.  The board will grant Dr. Jenny another three percent raise.  And three percent of a quarter million, ain't too bad, even in this economy.

Speaker Says How to Improve Education: Help Teachers Improve

Saying "teachers can't do it alone," AFT president Randi Weingarten urged Congress to view the pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as an opportunity to provide more support for teachers and students.
ESEA should "help ensure that teachers have the tools, time and trust they need to succeed, including offering teachers and students an environment that sets everyone up for success," Weingarten said in April 15 testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Weingarten's testimony described a comprehensive approach to high-quality teaching that includes better education programs for teacher candidates, stronger induction programs for new teachers and ongoing professional development for all teachers. She also repeated her call for more rigorous teacher evaluations and urged Congress to include in ESEA a pilot program to help school districts develop collaborative, transparent and fair teacher development and evaluation systems.
"Instead of relying on inadequate measures like a single student test score, the goal must be to develop systems to help promising teachers improve, enable good teachers to become great, and identify those teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom at all," Weingarten said.
Weingarten also called on Congress to restore a class-size reduction program with targeted funds for high-poverty schools. The program, Weingarten said, helps teachers differentiate instruction for students and better meet their needs.


Watch the speech here:
http://www.aft.org/getinvolved/futurestogether/
Read the speech here:
http://www.aft.org/pdfs/press/sp_weingarten011210.pdf

Possible Closure: Either Marshall Or Willowridge

If schools are shut down in Fort Bend it will mean many more jobs lost by teachers and staff.  Putting schools beyond max capacity and massively increasing student teacher ratios will only further serve to degrade and harm our children's educations. 

Supporters and staff of Willowridge High School packed the Fort Bend Independent School District’s Administration Building Monday night, the crowd even spilling through the doors outside.
The crowd showed up to the FBISD Board of Trustee’s fourth zoning workshop after hearing that there is a possibility the district could close Willowridge.
Trustees appear likely to make major changes in the structure of several schools on the east side of the district, which could include shutting down either Marshall High School or Willowridge High School.
Staff at either school would be “reabsorbed” within the district.
Which campus would be “repurposed” into a technical education center is still up in the air, as the board has asked staff to present a cost analysis for each campus at the next zoning workshop.
The proposal would change Missouri City Middle School and McAuliffe Middle School into 7^th, 8^th and 9^th grade campuses. Previous zoning options suggested shutting down McAuliffe and zoning the students to Missouri City Middle School and Quail Valley Middle School...
See the entire article here:

http://www.fortbendnow.com/2010/12/14/49454

Teacher Evaluations Get Exceedingly More Difficult

In 2010, many teachers were laid off based on a few factors, the first of which was certification, and the second was based on PDAS evaluations. This came as a surprise to many teachers because PDAS carried little or no weight to it in the past. Teachers have always wanted to be recognized for the hard work they do, but a few Proficients here and Exceeds there did not make the difference of deciding whether or not a long standing teacher lost their job. Now it does.

The Arrogance of FBISD Leadership

This article was published in the Fort Bend Star.  See the link below for the entire article.

The hubris of leadership....I am often astonished by the arrogance of some of our appointed and elected officials.
For example, I recently was informed that FBISD’s global center for science and technology was still on the drawing boards. I thought everyone agreed that in the economic climate of today, the science center was a program we did not have to have.
The global center for science and technology was FBISD’s answer to low science scores on the TAKS tests. Rather than throw a bunch of money at the classrooms, the district in its bid to build something it could name after somebody proposed a project that, except for its name, wasn’t going to do much for anybody, what with loading kids up and busing them several miles once or twice a semester so they could spend scant minutes at the center before loading on a bus and heading back to their home campus.
I had no idea the district was still kicking that ill-fated idea around until the board started talking about a bond election in order to not only build more schools, but of a more immediate nature, repair some schools in bad shape. Board members were informed that money still left over from previous bond issues was being saved for the science center rather than being used for current repairs.
Are you kidding me??? It is inconceivable to me that with as much controversy over the center in the first place that it would still be on the agenda.

FBISD Bus Drivers To Get Paid Sick Leave

Fort Bend Independent School District bus drivers won a long-fought battle with the school district at last night’s board meeting, when trustees voted 5-2 in favor of giving the drivers and monitors paid sick leave.
Board President Sonal Bhuchar and Trustee Laurie Caldwell voted against change.
Bus drivers and monitors have historically received only five days of personal leave, while other district employees earn up to five days of paid sick leave as well.
Bus drivers have spoken at board meeting, expressing frustration at the situation with many saying they felt the district does not value them as employees.
In August, the board adopted revisions to Board Policy that did not include sick leave for the bus drivers and monitors. At the request of board members Daniel Menendez and Susan Hohnbaum, the issue was brought before the board again in September.
Anthony Lacsamana, field organizer for the Fort Bend Employee Federation, spoke at Monday night’s meeting before the board voted on the issue. He said the change would “demonstrate a good faith effort of the district to right a past wrong.”
“It is clear that some members of the board have made a decision on the side of fairness,” said Lacsamana. He said the change was a fiscally responsible one, and that “for far too long the district has made considerable investment into new drivers only to lose them.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Fort Bend ISD has transferred and let go of teachers based on whether or not they were highly qualified.  This recent report from the AFT directly relates to some of FBISD's recent employee changes.

Court Says Teachers Still in Training Aren’t “Highly Qualified” Under Federal Law

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Texas AFT Staff

Last week a federal appeals court in California held that alternative-route teachers still in training are not “highly qualified” under the federal education law, the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education has interpreted the “highly qualified” requirement to allow individuals who “demonstrate satisfactory progress” toward certification to be deemed the equivalent of a teacher who “has obtained” full certification. The court said, “The difference between having obtained something and merely making satisfactory progress toward that thing is patent.” Accordingly, the court threw out the Education Department’s regulation for impermissibly expanding the definition of “highly qualified teacher.”
The two-to-one decision by the three-judge panel dealt specifically with “intern” teachers in California public schools, but its implications are national in scope, calling into question the truthful labeling of many teachers in training by alternative routes such as the Teach for America program. Plaintiffs in the California case said “research shows that graduates from alternative programs such as Teach For America and Troops To Teachers can be as effective as traditional-route graduates, but that participants in those and other programs who are still in training do not improve student achievement as much as fully prepared teachers who have completed their teacher training.”

SBOE and Texas Textbooks

Jenney to Teachers: Lay Off the Absences or Get Laid Off

In a letter sent on September 30, 2010, Dr. Jenney made a very clear connection between employee absences, the loss of dollars, and recent lay offs in the district.

Teachers are allotted a certain number of days for sick leave from the state and the district every year. Absences that are not used can be accumulated throughout subsequent years. Teachers have a right to take days off when they are sick. Being around hundreds if not thousands of students a day tends to challenge a person's immune system.

Now, as if there wasn't enough pressure, job insecurity and job dissatisfaction because of forced transfers, FBISD is being told not to take absences or risk getting laid off. The disclaimer at the bottom does NOT make up for the clear message that this letter sends.

"...I want to remind everyone that equally important to having new and effective tools to help us improve our work—is being at work. In recent years, the district has collected data on employee absenteeism to help us identify trends, and hopefully ways to improve attendance, especially teacher attendance. While good attendance is important in all work groups, it is most critical for our teachers since they, of course, have the most direct impact on students and learning...

In addition to a loss of quality instruction, teacher absenteeism and the use of substitutes take away valuable dollars that could be spent in the classroom. For example, teacher absences cost FBISD approximately $4.3 million this past school year in substitutes, which equates to approximately 40 teaching positions or 80 paraprofessional positions. Our absenteeism rate has been above the national average and seems to be following that trend again this year. Last Friday, September 24, in just that one day, we spent $20,400 on substitute teachers. The following chart demonstrates the progressive activity of teacher absences and district expenses on teacher substitutes thus far this school year."

Fair enough, Dr. Jenney. It is the duty of all teachers to be on time and show up to class for the sake of everyone involved. But teacher effectiveness is also a key factor in the success of classrooms and on exams. Teachers cannot be effective when they are given reprimands for taking state given sick days. They cannot be effective when they constantly have their planning periods jolted out of their schedules or when they have no duty-free lunch periods. They cannot be effective when their salaries get cut or they are in constant fear of losing their jobs. And a school is never effective when morale is low.  In fact, low morale is down right detrimental to everything the district is trying to achieve.

Teachers may not have much in the way of collective bargaining rights in Texas, but the consequences of not working with teachers, listening to their needs or making compromises will directly effect the quality of education in all districts across Texas.

Resources:

2008 Liberty University Study, "The relationship of Principal leadership and Teacher Morale".
2002 Sam Houston State University Study "The Effects of Teacher Morale on Teacher Turnover Rates"

FBISD Hits Series of Legal Snags

The Fort Bend school district has hit legal snags in its efforts to challenge state mandates on assigning grades to students and giving teachers raises.
In addition, the district has been found to be legally obligated to satisfy a district teacher union's request for information concerning the process of the district's decision-making on waves of layoffs that took place in the spring.
On June 28, state District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal ruled that Texas public schools must give students truthful grades on class assignments as well as their report cards under a 2009 state law.
See the full article here:
http://ultimatefortbend.com/stories/7989-fort-bend-isd-hits-series-of-legal-snags

School Supt. Tim Jenney hired teacher to build his home and man had to sue to collect

This article was originally posted by the Virginia News Source in 2002

School Superintendent Timothy R. Jenney, is known for his abrasive, blustery style which included hiring one of his teachers, in an apparent violation of school board regulations,  to build his luxury home at Croatan Beach and then refused to pay him until the man put a lien on his house.  Jenney didn't want to discuss the case publicly.  It isn't the public's business, he said, and he refused to comment.  He refused multiple requests for an interview.

Another contractor also had to sue Jenney, still lost money and didn't get paid a cent for his labor, he said.  In addition, "One resident said, he's been a pain in the ass to his new neighbors, using his access to city resources to harass them."  

That issue and his hiring of former congressional aide Jeanne Evans, who had only a high school education, as an  executive assistant at almost $80,000 a year,  were expected to be topics of discussion at the School Board's annual retreat. 

Dr. Jenney Has History of Spending Taxpayer School Funds for Personal Growth

This Article comes from the Virginia News Source and was posted on September 1, 2001 when he was Supt. of Virginia Beach Schools.

In March of 2010, a local Virginia newspaper noted that Dr. Jenney had asked for his former colleagues from Virginia to move to Texas and work in FBISD.

Not Playing From The Same Sheet Of Music

Or it doesn't take an MBA to figure out Dr. Jenney wasn't qualified for job when the board hired him and now taxpayers have to pay for his education

What does Dr. Timothy Jenney and the teachers in the Virginia Beach Public Schools have in common?

Not much, according to the latest round of school board votes for funding his return to a school of his choice for an MBA at a cost to the taxpayers of $70,000. (Teachers would get only about $7272 for a similar degree).

By comparison, Old Dominion University’s MBA program for instate students is $202 per semester hour. Multiply that by 36 hours and you have an affordable and quality MBA for $7272. Makes sense. And also supports a local university. And doesn’t drain additional valuable tax dollars needed elsewhere, especially in the classrooms.

Special Education Layoffs Hurt Classes, Students, Teachers

The Reduction in Force, firings, transfers and changes in Special Education this year in the name of RIF and Highly Qualified are going to severely hurt teachers, classrooms, students and ultimately, parents.

Special Education students make up ten percent of all student population on average. Because they are considered a special population, like gifted and talented, they also bring in more state and federal dollars than other students. Employing teachers, therapists, paraprofessionals, diagnosticians, is a huge endeavor.

The buzz around the district headquarters and Human Resources was that Special Education was "overstaffed" in general - thus many teachers lost their jobs. While HR tried to make it seem as though many in administration also lost their jobs, this simply was not the case. Most jobs that were lost were teachers and paraprofessionals. 

Now add "highly qualified" into the equation.

Busted Administrator Gets Relocated While Teachers Get Laid Off

One high school assistant principal in Fort Bend I.S.D. last year was caught having sex on school property. No charges were filed and the incident was not reported. However, the story has been confirmed and verified by three employees and one administrator. It is said that eye witnesses were contractors working on the school site at the time.  The assistant principal was transferred to another high school within the district. That administrator is now evaluating teachers whose jobs now depend on good evaluations.

The point is that this kind of treatment of administration is common practice in Fort Bend. A principal gets in trouble, they get moved. A teacher has too many "proficients" on their evaluation, they get laid off. Bus drivers, paraprofessionals, and "at will" employees? They just get the life sucked out of them.

Teacher transferred in September without warning.

One teacher was recently transferred to another school across the district (we'll call her "Jane") because of the enrollment numbers at both schools. She was told on Tuesday that she had to pack up and leave her classroom and was in her new school and classroom on Wednesday.  There was no prior warning, not even a courtesy call to the principal.  Jane was transferred on the basis of how recently she had been hired on in the district - "last one in, first one out".  Though there were other teachers who had been employed by the district more recently, those other teachers were not chosen to be transferred because they had an extra curricular (coaching) period.  Ironically, it's those teachers that have multiple coaching periods that reduce the overall student/teacher ratio for a school, and are part of the reason why this teacher was transferred in the first place.  It's not the coach's fault.  It's how the very flawed system works.

The point: Fort Bend ISD has NOT followed the procedures that it established before the layoffs and makes decisions without the best interests of the students in mind.

Riffed Teacher gets Threatened by Principal

One teacher accepted a job at a middle school in mid July after being laid off and then transferred. After the Reduction in Force (being laid off), though,  this teacher was of course looking for a job and not waiting around to see what happened in Fort Bend. However, when this teacher called the Principal inform her of her promotion, the principal responded, "You can’t leave! If I would have known you were looking for another job, I would not have hired you. You will never work for Ft. Bend again." 

Fort Bend allows teachers to leave after the 45 day period before the start of school if they receive a promotion. Not to mention the fact that this teacher was first told that she no longer had a job in Fort Bend and then offered one in mid July. The principal then attempted to block this teacher's resignation in at Human Resources which was unsuccessful.

 

Essentially, the teacher
1) Was laid off in Spring 2010
2) Began looking for other jobs
3) was offered a job at a Fort Bend middle school in July
4) Accepted a promotion in another district

I guess some people think that Fort Bend must be the only "district of choice".

Teacher Removed From Position Sees Own Job Opening

One teacher was moved out of their teaching assignment this year and placed into a different teaching position at another school because the position was being removed (so they were told).  The teacher decided to look at the job postings on Fort Bend ISD's human resources web site. Sure enough, there was a vacancy for the exact position that he had been moved out of. When this teacher called Human Resources to see about getting his old job back (since FBISD had changed their minds about getting rid of the position), he was told that he would have to resign from FBISD first and then reapply.

The job market is certainly fickle these days.

FBISD does a 180 on reduction in Special Education pay.

In a recent letter dated Aug. 18, 2010 to special education staff at Fort Bend ISD, Rhonda McWilliams from the human resources department decided to change its policy on reducing pay for special education paraprofessionals who were forced out of the "severe" classrooms and into the "non severe" ones in late July.

The letter reads:
"After further review for the 2010-2011 school year, it has been determined that we will maintain the 2009-10 salary amount for non severe special education aides recently reassigned. Therefore, those severe aides who were reassigned to non-severe aides will continue with your 2009-2010 salary level for one year only. As of this week, principals have been notified that they must fill severe special education aide vacancies from the list of those who were reassigned from severe to non-severe aide..."

Union to File Grievances over Reduction in Pay

The Fort Bend Employee Federation (FBEF) is filing two grievances against Fort Bend ISD on behalf of their members who have suffered a loss in pay. Many Special Education Paraprofessionals were moved from "severe" to "non severe" which means they were working with students with more serious handicaps, but not anymore. Many were notified about this change as late as three weeks before they returned to work. As result, their salary was decreased anywhere from three to five thousand dollars. The FBEF claims that the district did not notify those paraprofessionals early enough or at all.

The second grievance is regarding Special Education Teachers who lost their stipends this year. They also were not informed of this reduction in pay.

As a side note, FBISD said that the reason for losing the Sp.Ed. stipend of $1500 was that the need for special education teachers is no longer what it used to be.

But overall, FBISD's respect for Special Education teachers remains about the same.

Teachers Getting Mixed Messages from Human Resources

One teacher at one Fort Bend ISD high school was told that they had to leave their teaching area (Life Skills) because that class required a teacher to be "highly qualified" in the four core areas, and this teacher was not.

Another Life Skills teacher at another high school was told that she would have to leave that class because Life Skills did NOT require a teacher to be highly qualified in the four core areas. This teacher was highly qualified in the four core areas ironically partly because she HAD been teaching life skills for such a long time. Human resources removed her from her position to place her in Applied Math and Behavior classes (classes which she had little to no experience in whatsoever).

Maybe human resources at FBISD thinks that rules and consistency only applies to discipline in the classroom.

Teacher with 30 years experience laid off

One teacher at an Fort Bend ISD high school was laid off by reduction in force (RIF) because, although they were certified and had thirty years experience in their field and had a history of taking students to State in their competition, they had more "proficients" on their evaluation than "exceeds". As a result, they were replaced by someone who is currently going through the alternative certification program.

Hey, if that doesn't save you some money, I don't know what will.

Longtime FBISD teachers not layoff-proof

If the Fort Bend school district has to lay off any teachers, how many years they have worked for the district won't pull a lot of weight.On Monday, the school board voted 5-2 to approved a change in policy that puts seniority at the bottom of a list of criteria used to decide who should go first if layoffs are needed.
Trustees Daniel Menendez and David Reitz, who is seeking a second term in May, voted against the change.

What are the criteria?

The four criteria had been in the following order: certification, performance evaluation, seniority, and professional background, which includes training and work experience related to the job assignment.
Before the vote, the board policy on layoffs placed seniority in the district above professional background. In other words, those with more years of service in the district had a better chance to be retained when the district cut its workforce.
But the administration recommended that the order be changed to give professional background more importantance than seniority.
Read the rest of this article here:  http://ultimatefortbend.com/stories/4932-longtime-fbisd-teachers-are-not-layoff-proof