Duluth School Board begins laying off teachers
May 15, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Six non-tenured teachers were laid off Tuesday by the Duluth School Board in a 5-1 vote.
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Duluth School Board begins laying off teachers
34 Comments
Bet the school board is wishing they would have let the public vote on the dumb a** Red Plan now uh? (Legal voting, on the November Ballots)! If they had, more levies would probably have gotten through the voters on the November ballots and it wouldn’t have come down to this! They have nobody to thank but themselves!
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Call it what you like but this whole fiasco has been one of total incompetence.
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Keep it up skrewl-board! Less teachers, less education for the students! And to lay off special ed teachers is one of the lowest tactics this board has approved! Shame on all of you!
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Wanner was all for the Red Plan. So go back to the union and tell them this is what you get for being silent and not speaking up for teachers and education but rather went for the shiny new buildings.
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Economics 101,you don’t buy a fleet a Cadilacs and then whine you don’t have gas money to keep them going.
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Economics 101 also would include the lesson that you don’t let your buildings to become mold infested rat holes. To bad that’s exactly what the Duluth School board did between 1975 and 2005.
Yesterday there was that discussion of bad landlords. A poor landlord, a slumlord, will abuse the property trying to squeeze an extra buck out of it. The property value goes down over time as they don’t repair and make needed upgrades.
That’s pretty much exactly what Duluth did with school buildings for 3 to 4 decades. That’s also exactly what some folks want to do with the new buildings.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Its a good sounding argument if its true the old buildings were in a state of dilapidation. They were not. Furthermore there is great irony in the fact that after expending $315 million dollars on new schools there has been no provision made in the building/finance plan for ongoing maintenance of these new schools.
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So Doug, you are admitting that the school district mismanaged the assets (the school buildings) the public entrusted them with and allowed them to deteriorate. Incompetent building maintenance should never be rewarded with new buildings, which will inevidably be incompetently maintained, but rather should be rewarded with pink slips…starting at the top.
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Half a billion dollars (which is a lot closer to the true cost of the Red Plan than $315 million) would have bought a lot of new windows, new roofs, new heating systems and anything else the old school buildings needed. Would’ve paid for a lot of teachers, too.
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Doug, all you are doing is repeating the rhetoric and lies. Try to incite mass hysteria to scare the soccer moms into believing those lies. Now look what you are left with. Yes, we needed to upgrade and consolidate some schools. Instead, this district went hog wild. The picture you paint is complete B as in B / S as in S.
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They did need to consolidate and upgrade schools to a degree. The did a poor job of keeping Red Plan costs in check. The article brings up another issue. The story reads “Six non-tenured teachers were laid off”. You can thank Mark Dayton for the fact that layoffs were based on seniority. He vetoed a bill that would have based teacher layoffs on performance. They need to reform educational policies across the board.
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oh boy Doug – you either have your head in the sand and haven’t done an ounce of research on what you are spewing or you think the rest of us were born yesterday. I believe mold was found in one or two building max. (Lester Park and MacArthur) Both could have been repaired with some extensive remodels, but most of us agree that indeed a couple schools did need to be replaced. But to say that all the schools were “rat holes” and “mold infested” is a complete lie. Secondly, best check your statement about the schools having any maintenance for all those years. If thats true, then most of us would like to know where the millions of dollars the Board was given during those years that was designated for maintenance. These buildings had millions in maintenance done.
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Hattie: This screwel board has a proven track record of fiscal incompetence. Only a fool would give them more money to mismanage.
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The levy did fail last fall. But they were still able to bump it up 5 percent in each of the past 2 years. If the levy fails this fall they will still be able to get another 5 percent or so. They need to restore the trust in the voters before anything will pass.
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DNT, can you please enable comments on the Casino story?
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I see the article fails to mention how many administration positions they cut. Oh wait…..
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Hey, be a dear and give a list of every person at Old Old Central, their title, and how much they make, and we can go from there.
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You were the first one to pull this “provide a list game.” When you are confronted about it about it, you dodge it. Great. Cutting these non-tenured staff is just an easy move for the administration, because they don’t have to deal with the Wanner, the local teachers union, and Education Minnesota, instead of going after older, staff. It would be so easy to cut money from the Old Old Central Admin building. Sadly, their books will never, ever be public. Shame.
Doug, we all know that you have some sort of vested interest in the local school board.
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Give me the books, a red pen and an hour and I’ll find things to cut. Promise.
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Dan, they want to cut teachers first. It gets more play in the press. If they cut anywhere else the pubic might not be so inclined to vote for the levy. You lay off teachers to scare the soccer moms into voting for the levy. What they need to do is try to win back our trust. But they have failed at that so far this year. It will take time.
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Doug, I sure hope you’re not trying to hide your unwavering allegiance to this board/district, it’s as transparent as the day is long. And the way you like to talk rectum on this public forum, I sure hope yours is quivering in fear of a potential lay-off, however, your arrogance leads me to believe you’ll be just fine. I get the sense you’re one of the fools that thought this community-wrecking red plan up. Also, we could save a lot of money if we didn’t have district employees posting on here all day, obviously your job is some of the fat that could be trimmed.
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Oh yeah!
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doug doesn’t work for the District. last I heard he was unemployed with plenty of time to come up with rude, arrogant comments on DNT forums that show his undying support for the Board.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I look forward to the day when most students are home-schooled.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Let me see…New buildings, cost yet to be determined, fire teachers…operating costs insufficient for teaching. As I have said many times; my education was inspired by who not where. This is like an empty suit…looks nice, does nothing. Wait…reminds me of something else.
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