Youch. Some angry natives out there this week:
Who approved this? That would be the school board. They have given out some huge raises like Halloween candy for years now. It’s all been covered here ad nauseum. Here is a reprint of a blog from June of this year:
April 2018: The Lampasas Independent School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved a general pay increase for all the district’s teachers, administrators and auxiliary staff. Each teacher will receive a $1,500 increase, a raise of about 3% will go to administrators, and an increase of about 5% will be given to aides, clerical and auxiliary staff. The pay raise will add about $800,000 to the budget.
July 2019: The Lampasas Independent School District Board of Trustees approved teacher raises totaling $1.5 million for the coming school year.
March 2020: Our school board approved a compensation plan for next year that includes a 7% general pay increase of the midpoint for teachers, clerical/aides, and auxiliary. A general pay increase of 5% of the midpoint for administrators was approved as well.
January 2021: The Lampasas Independent School District Board of Trustees voted Monday night to extend Superintendent Dr. Chane Rascoe’s contract, which now is set to expire in June 2024. Trustees also granted Rascoe a 7% raise, bringing his salary to $169,864 as of July 1. In addition, trustees voted to give all school district employees an additional 10 days of paid leave for “COVID-19- related issues”.
April 8, 2022: Superintendent Dr. Chane Rascoe recommended a plan that includes a general pay increase of 3% of the midpoint salary for administrators and teachers, and an increase of 4% of the midpoint range for aides, clerical and auxiliary staff.
Rascoe said that would put starting teacher pay at $48,925, up from the current $47,500 salary for new teachers.
Trustee Sam Walker offered an amended proposal that would move starting teacher pay to $49,000 and add $75 to each step in the salary schedule. The 3% and 4% pay increases would be calculated from these new figures.
The board approved Walker’s plan by unanimous vote.
Funny how the cost to run the schools goes up massively over time but teachers always seem to be underpaid and school performance seems to be flat.
I wonder where it all goes? The answer: paper pushers and administrative bloat. Not to mention wildly overpaid figureheads like Chane Rascoe:
It goes to ridiculous titles like “educational diagnostician”, “assistant superintendent”, “District Instr Pgm Director Or Exc Dir” and “occupational therapist”. These people make big money – and educate nobody at all.
The top three guys at LISD (before Bott left for mo money) were Rascoe, Shane Jones and Matt Bott – combined in 2018 they made close to $400,000 per year (that is NOT including benefits! Cost to taxpayers is actually much higher).
If you have the word “assistant” in front of your job title, chances are you are superfluous and could be let go tomorrow with zero effect on the kids’ learning.
HOW IT WAS IN THE OLD DAYS. OLD GUY RANT COMING UP….
Let me take you back to the 1970s when I was just a little Lampasshole. I went to a school with grade 1 through 8. Each class had 30 kids. We sat in rows in desks starting in FIRST GRADE and there was no fucking around – even though class sizes were 50% bigger than today. None of this “collaborative learning” sitting at tables and jerking around. You swam or sank on your own steam.
My Dad informed me it cost $600 each per year to send us to that private school. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $4,500 today. I’ll call it $5,000 to be charitable. Lampasas spends well over $10,000 per student now. DOUBLE what it cost when I was a kid.
How the hell did we do it back then?? Well, there was no administrative bloat or armies of paper pushers, that’s how. We didn’t have psychiatrists and counselors and all that horseshit. Your counseling took place at recess with kids much older than you – and it was Lord of the Flies (we read that in 3rd grade – bet they don’t even bother now). When you were in fifth grade and having recess with the eighth graders in a dodgeball game, you learned how to fend for yourself – not cry to the teacher about a cyber-bully or some such nonsense.
There was one teacher in each class (8 teachers) and one sub who would come in if anyone was sick. We had ONE principal and that was it. No assistants or aides or anything else. She had a paddle on her wall and she used it judiciously.
There was ONE secretary and her mimeograph machine. That was it. No computers or laptops or iPads or other bullshit…EVERYTHING was done by hand back then – all the grading and all the report cards…done by a single secretary and her stinky mimeograph machine.
We had actual chalk chalkboards and a single little in-window A/C unit in each classroom that they rarely ran. This was Catholic school but they certainly were Jews when it came to paying for electricity for the air conditioning. It had to be over 95 for them to turn it on.
We had one P/E teacher and one custodian. We had a very small library and one librarian. THAT WAS IT. A grand total of about 13 employees ran that school of 240 kids – a ratio of 18.5 kids to employees.
Here in Lampasas, there are about 3,300 kids and over FIVE HUNDRED employees. A ratio of 6.6 kids to employees. Pretty much TRIPLE the administrative bloat. Here is that chart again:
Also remember there was no federal Department of Education at this time. That asshole Carter didn’t implement that until 1980 or so. Gee – how did we EVER get along with THAT??
You know what else we didn’t have back then? Laptops. We managed to learn from BOOKS and a chalkboard! Lest you tell me “well, laptops and computer learning are more efficient!”, I will have to call bullshit. The Lampasas ISD has spent over ONE MILLION DOLLARS on laptops since 2017. There has been ZERO improvement in results.
[They spent $361,000 in 2017, $300,000 in 2018 and $348,000 this year]
I also GUARANTEE you we were better educated back then. Take a look at a grade school test from the 60s or 70s. It probably looks like high school-level stuff now. That’s how dumbed-down everything has gotten:
I doubt most of the students at Austin Community College could pass this even WITH a calculator. They’re too busy crying about what pronoun they want to be called by and blathering about social justice. Then they wonder why they get their “degree” that says they are “educated” and they end up right back pouring coffee at Starbucks.
They are in that boat because from first grade on, they were coddled by a bunch of useless paper pushers instead of EDUCATED and smacked when they got out of line. They never learned that the world doesn’t run on their fucking feelings.
Lampasshole solution? Less $170,000 administrators, more paddling of asses and more shaming when tests are failed.
Worked for my generation.