In the news: funding rally, Trib seeks input on principals
May 14, 2009 7:19 am
Portland Tribune reporter Jennifer Anderson has put out a call for input on PPS principals.
Also from the Trib, a distributed school funding rally is planned for tomorrow.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I informed a teacher of Jennifer’s request for input, his response was ” I think she just wants input from parents? ” which begs the question, input from whom?
May 19th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Her request reads “your child’s school” and “your child’s principal.”
May 20th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Thanks for asking for clarification. I am asking parents, volunteers, site council members, teachers and staff to weigh in on their school principals.
I’d love to hear from anyone who’s had an issue with their principal that they’ve tried to resolve by “fighting the system.”
Or if you’ve been involved in th principal hiring process and have something to say about it. Or if you have thoughts on how principals are or should be evaluated. Please send any such stories my way.
Thanks much,
jennifer anderson
jenniferanderson@portlandtribune.com
May 20th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Jennifer: You made what you want perfectly clear, thanks. The problem will be to get teachers to share any concerns that they might have though, afraid of reprisals etc. Now parents on the other hand have all kinds of power. Like the Lincoln principal that kept the basketball coach. It was probably pressure from parents that stopped her from getting rid of him. Parents have had their way before at Lincoln in the past.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:34 am
Speaking of Lincoln I just learned that the principal at LHS has taken over the responsibility of assigning teaching positions? In all my years of teaching I have never heard of such a thing? Teaching assignments have always been handled by each department and I believe that is the case in every other high school. Wonder how the curriculum VP feels about that or all the teachers for that matter? It would be a great way for a principal to keep teachers under her thumb but who would want to work under those conditions? Maybe that is what she wants? Nasty.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:57 am
Jennifer you need to do a story on Lincoln and it’s principal. This just in: the principal has used FTE to hire a parent to fill a position called “business manager” that pays pretty well, 70K a year? Is that legal? I thought FTE was supposed to be used for teaching positions? But how would I know? Every principal that I ever worked with never gave me any reason to ask questions like that.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 am
Lincoln is not the only school that has hired parents to do a variety of non-traditional jobs for its school (marketing, for example). It would be interesting to see if the use of these funds is legal but I don’t think we should single out Lincoln when this practice is clearly widespread.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Sounds like Lincoln has some extra FTE to throw around.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Business managers, started as a grant, money ran out, FTE became a source of funding. Lincoln and Wilson are the only two schools with a business manager, I have been told. FTE, now that is hard to find out what the rules are in using, if there are any? This is all second hand knowledge. Vicki Phillips put together a committee to come up with some kind of plan to develop some rules for equity across the district. Carla Randall who was the principal at Wilson at the time invested major time into the effort. End result the whole thing was dropped and because of that Carla quit and was hired by the Tigard district and principals can pretty much do whatever they damn well please with their FTE money. In the wrong hands I can see where that kind of power should be a concern to others in that particular school.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Jefferson has a business manager, too.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Why should any high school need a “business manager”? I thought school personnel were supposed to be in the
“business” of education? Don’t we have enough people in the Admin building to do the “business”? What am I missing here???
May 28th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Jennifer Anderson’s article about PPS principals can be read here:
http://www.portlandtribune.com.....8384210700