Letter: Interim Superintendent should give back more than half her salary
Letter to the editor
Open letter to the Superintendent of Alachua Public Schools:
Our Commander in Chief, President Donald Trump, only makes $400,000 a year.
You, as Superintendent, make $300,000 a year, with your friends allowance, car, house, and telephone with your salary.
More then any other Superintendent in the history of Alachua County has ever made. We are working in a deficit of 20 million dollars for our Alachua County School System.
This is not fair!!!
You wonder why you don’t have money to pay our teachers. Why you’re losing teachers, students. Why the City of Newberry wanted to take over their hometown school to be a charter school, which hired a former teacher, principal of 30 years in Alachua County Schools as their new Principal, who was also an Alachua County Teacher of the Year, plus 3 other counties where she was a principal and who was a district official at two different counties.
Marion County only pays their Superintendent $168,000 a year, which was the maximum amount the past Alachua County Superintendents made in years past .
Yes, I know my facts. My mother was the first Nurse Aide hired at SBAc, and my father helped Dr. Robert Hughes, former Superintendent, start the Teacher of the Year Banquet, who in all his years here in Alachua County never made your salary in a total sum of his tenure. My father also was a PTA President at Lake Forest Elementary who had a CPA License and worked for the Federal Government for 42 years. Never that kinda salary. Plus gave back his money to The Schools Foundation and helped Emery Bishop, current Principal at Newberry Elementary, start an Olympics at Lake Forest Elementary, while Mr. Bishop was PE Coach. Those teachers and Principals, you don’t realize what they’ve done for students.
If you, as Interm Superintendent, have a heart for students, you would give back to Alachua County Schools and our tax dollars more then half your current salary for the rest of your term, plus some of last year, until you leave. Then the Alachua County School Board Members would have money to pay the salary for teachers, custodians, nurses which are now with the Alachua County Health Department, plus ways to help ESE teachers and students.
You, Interm Superintendent, bring in your friends to get a job, wanting to pay them the same salary.
Alachua County is not Collier County or Palm Beach, or whichever 6-figure county you came from, who are wealthy with that kinda salary.
We are Alachua County, who cares about everyone in need. “Not selfish.” “We give back to help others.” A motto my parents taught me all my life, as an Eagle Scout and Lay Minister of God.
Interm Superintendent, please consider giving back to Alachua County the funds you’ve taken from US.
We don’t need to close schools in order to save money or expand schools to K-8 grade.
Money doesn’t grow on trees, and Alachua County Schools can’t afford a salary you’re earning.
Thank you for your time here, but please consider giving part of your salary back to Alachua County to prevent the closure of neighborhood schools, parents’ struggles, and anxiety over all this animosity this school system is in. Not enough money to go around and be able to get other things accomplished like repairs on schools.
Please Give Back. What would the Father Creator above tell you to do!!!
Burt Wetherington
Historian
Warehouse worker of Alachua County Schools while at Eastside High School DCT Program. 1997-2000
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Your concerns should be placed on the School Board members not the Super. The School Board members are at fault for being unable to hire a permanent Super over these past years and for being unable to work together on behalf of the students. They are responsible for the budget issues, the delays in rezoning, the construction issues and the results of the students. This Super came in and found the budget issue, developed a plan to deal with it, brought in experienced people to assist, agreed to stay on past her initial contract and is trying to lead this inept School Board out of the hole they dug. Place your blame where it belongs and that is not the Super.
🤔…
That’s not even something she’ll think about. She’s here to pad her retirement and she found just the organization gullible enough to hire her for such an absurd amount.
Besides her history making salary, here’s more of her “accomplishments”:
1. Cut media aides.
2. Cut general paraprofessionals.
3. Cut salaries and vacation time of Assistant Principals.
4. Cut Database salaries and vacation time.
5. Conducts numerous meetings per month that effectively remove administrators from their respective schools.
6. Mandated teachers have “focus” boards in the classrooms. (Ironic, given her inattention to anything but her paycheck)
7. Implemented new software programs in which she allegedly has a financial interest.
I still haven’t been able to discover why she “departed” Collier County.
It’s as easy as A, B, C—she’s here for one thing: $$$$. It’s all about the 💰, not the children, and she could care less about the employees. Don’t even suggest she give back a portion of her salary; you’re more likely to get the🖕🏻.
I agree with you 100%, but how many of those cut positions were added by the SBAC when the COVID windfall money was burning a hole in their pocket?
Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Those positions have always played an important role in the system. They’re the people in the trenches — the frontline warriors. They’re not the equity and inclusion positions most have heard about, nor are they the created positions for underperforming personnel they’ve installed at the district level.
File a public record request of the hires and positions created since Simon’s tenure as superintendent. Eye-opening is a term that would be quite appropriate.
The Current SBAC is headed to a great disaster and the kids education has taken a severe downward trend. The current school bus systems is tragic and no efforts made to correct the system. How difficult is it to hire prn drivers?? provide small cash perts and drivers will appear.