In a memo to employees last week, MCPS Superintendent Jerry Weast outlined the cutbacks to classroom teaching staff for the upcoming year, complete with his plans for a class size increase.
But buried in the Answers to Budget Questions, we learn that Jerry Weast proposes to spend $2.4 million dollars on "consultants" during FY 2011: an increase of over $100,000 from the year before!
Some of the funds for "consultants," which could be going to pay for classroom teaching positions, are listed below:
$196,950: Facilitators for school groups and teams, outside consultants to provide professional development to school staff, consultants to run first aid classes and other courses where specific certification is required, AmeriCorps services, adjudicators for instrumental music festivals and choral music festivals, and consultants to work with drama groups.
$38,820: Downcounty Consortium: Contract professional speakers to train and inform teachers of current educational trends. Contract professionals to assist teachers with various academy activities. (...)DCCAPS Office: school assignment lottery process.
$6,600: North East Consortium schools: Contract professionals for audio-visual, sound, and lighting support and a professional to educate Health Education Students about HIV/Aids ($600). DCCAPS: lottery process ($6000)
$10,400: School Based AEI: Funds for Destination Imagination program
$6,922: School Based CTE: Signature Schools: To contract professional speakers to train and inform teachers of current educational trends. Contract professionals to assist teachers with various academy activities and funding for students to participate in Orientation Program at UMCP.
$5,070: Summer School Program: Professional musicians and clerical support for local programs.
$10,000: Div. Early Childhood: Consultants deliver parent outrach workshops in Kennedy Cluster to support achievement of young children. Distribute PAL kits and train parents to use kits. Provide Literacy Learning Party (10 session parent classes) for at risk children from birth through 5 ($3600). (...) Consultant for professional development activities for staff to support continuous improvement such as grant development, Study Circles for Diversity, and strategic planning ($3,075). Speaker/consultant for Early Childhood Conference-MCPS expert panel discussion $2,000.
Next: More Consultants!
100 grand on a 2.3 million dollar item is 4.3%.
ReplyDeleteFactoring in inflation, it's a pretty small bump.
That said, we can ask if some of this training could hold off a year when things are as tight as they are.
Do some of these consultants enhance the abilities of the teachers we get to keep? What efficacy metrics are in use, if any?
Such things might help convince voters that this is a wise expenditure. Transparency is their friend if what they're doing is legit.
How would we know whether these consultants enhance the abilities of the teachers? The ones that sound the most fishy to me are "inform teachers of current educational trends."
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