Apparently the Bridgewater-Emery school board has figured out how to give teachers a $25,000 bonus. You just get them to resign mid-year:
The Bridgewater-Emery School District gave a resigning teacher a $25,000 contract payoff last week, but the superintendent and school board president have declined to offer any reasons for the agreement.
David Eich, a former eighth-grade civics health and K-8 physical education and health teacher for more than 19 years in the Bridgewater-Emery district, had his voluntary resignation approved at a special school board meeting held on Christmas Eve.
In the resignation document, Eich, who also served as the district’s cross country coach, called the resignation a “free and voluntary act of my own will” and said leaving his post in the district “is not an admission of wrong-doing on my part” [Evan Hendershot, “Bridgewater-Emery School District Pays Teacher $25,000 After Resignation,” Mitchell Daily Republic, 2016.01.01].
I know that’s not a sustainable financial strategy, but $25,000 for quitting work five months early? That’s a heck of a bonus!
I can’t tell what Eich’s salary was, since Bridgewater-Emery doesn’t post its board minutes and teacher salaries on it wiki-jumble website. However, Bridgewater-Emery’s average teacher salary in FY2015 was about $4,000 below the state’s average, and they’ve been ranked in the bottom third of South Dakota districts for teacher pay in the past, so the district doesn’t appear to have money to throw around. But apparently Bridgewater-Emery can pay Eich to go home and pay a sub to come teach for the rest of the year.
Uff da—that’s not going to help me convince Rep. Kent Peterson, Rep. Kyle Schoenfish, and Senator Bill Van Gerpen to vote to raise teacher pay this session.
What do you suppose he did?
Maybe his fingers were crossed behind his back when he admitted not admitting anything.
Mr. Van Gerpen wants to raise pay for good teachers. Not for teachers who quit in the middle of the year.
The $25,000.00 bonus was for resigning without any incident of wrong doing. No legal fights for either the school or the teacher. The teacher moves on with his 19 years in the SD retirement plan with no bad recommendation and everyone is happy, except the taxpayer that got nothing for the $25,000.00.
Grud I’ll ask Mr. Van Gerpen that when we have our cracker barrel. I’ll ask him how he can tell a good teacher from a bad teacher?
If a teacher has really done wrong, I’d rather my school district fire the teacher and pay a lawyer to make that firing stick.
But no one did anything wrong here, right? Isn’t that what the resignation agreement said?
As a union guy, it’s certainly possible the administration did something that just tee’d him off and he said to heck with you … I’m outa here and if you don’t pay me, I’ll go public.
And if that’s the case, Porter, then the administration is using our tax dollars to cover up their mistake, which isn’t acceptable, either.
Absolutely agreed. This is a blatant lack of transparency but employer-employee relations aren’t a matter of public record. There must be an overseeing state agency that is investigating this move and looking out for public funds?
Porter ,Lanny, C.H. you actually think this great state would cover up anything.
Sometimes it’s not a matter of right or wrong. Sometimes it’s messy and gray. Personnel matters are overwhelmingly private, even in pubic organizations. This is done to protect the employee more than the employer, much less the elected officials who are entrusted with oversight of the employer.
To me, $25,000 sounds like a cheap alternative to retaining a bad employee through the end of his contract *or* engaging in litigation over whether or not termination is appropriate. Since there are no criminal charges being discussed, and at least some of those involved are “mandatory reporters” under SD law should anyone’s actions have harmed a child or other vulnerable person, the presumption is that the issue is a “personnel issue” and not something more serious.
You might be right Michael but this teacher has taught for 19 years. Hard to be bad for that long and keep your job-despite what Grud thinks
I’m speculating that the school has the problem here or they never would have paid the $25,000.
They just would have fired him.
Mr. Reitzel, would you like me to blog the Seven Indisputable Levels of Teachers again for you?
My. Reitzel, do you NEED me to?
Then-Rapid City Superintendent Peter Wharton told me in 2008 that he often offered trouble teachers $10,0000 to go away and it almost always worked.
He said it was better than a legal battle and saved the district money while removing a problem. Peter also said he would list the money in various locations in the thick packet for the next school board meeting and the press, which did not scrutinize the paperwork, never caught on.
Perhaps he was doing the right thing, but it seems like a bad teacher received a cash award that was undeserved.
Grudz only has three standards-young,female,wingnut.
The school said he did something wrong. The teacher disagreed and said I’m a good teacher and coach and if you want to get rid of me, prove otherwise. The school said we’ll pay you, and you’ll leave with nothing on your record. It was a compromise and the opinion that he did something wrong depends on who you ask. And it wasn’t a “pay off”, it was the school honoring their part of an employment contract. Small towns, big drama.
Wonder what the rest of the story is? This is what is wrong with education assuming he violated his contract or code of conduct he should have been fired. This is why tenure needs to go.
Send C.H Porter, and Lanny to investigate.Porter head west out of Sioux Falls on Hwy 42
Sam@,
Your use of “tenure” inaccurately leads uniformed readers to believe teachers are assured a job by virtue of time in the trenches. There is no such thing as “teacher tenure”. To engage in meaningful discussion, you should understand “continuing contract ” as it applies to teachers. Simply put, a Board can release a teacher without cause within the first 3 years of a contract. After 3 years in service and on contract, the Board needs to establish cause if they choose to terminate employment. Isn’t that fair? Knowing nothing about Mr. Eich’s situation, I suspect the Board could terminate employment immediately if they had cause. Without cause they would minimally need to continue to pay him through the end of his contract whether he reported to school each day or not. I’d be interested to see what we think is fair in light of law
http://legis.sd.gov/Statutes/Codified_Laws/DisplayStatute.aspx?Type=Statute&Statute=13-43-6.3
True ‘dat, Comet! As Lee Schoenbeck noted in 2012, there is no such thing as tenure.
School boards have all the tools they need to remove bad teachers for cause. To protect good teachers from bad local politics, we require that school boards have their ducks in a row and be able to document the bad teacher’s termination-worthy failures. That shouldn’t be hard for a school board that wants to do its homework.
The district is required, by statute, to publish the salary of all employees of the school district prior to the beginning of each school year. This is to be published in the same newspaper in which the school minutes are published following each school board meeting. Hence, a review of those minutes will produce said salary.
Thanks comet for pointing out the flaw in Sam@’s post. This brings to mind an interesting contradiction in some conservative thinking.
Conservatives who distrust governmental entities seem to be the first to attack what they call teacher tenure, which requires notice, an opportunity to be heard and a decision by an impartial judge before the government can take away a teacher’s livelihood. In other words, they trust the government that they don’t trust to arbitrarily decide when a person loses a career.
I suppose the same thinking goes on in relation to the death sentence. Conservatives who support the death sentence trust the government they do not trust to decide whether to kill someone. Does anyone else notice the inconsistency and disconnect in this type of thinking?
Mr. Mike, although you are from Iowa, I can get you a discounted price on the 2016 Young Pretty Female Wingnut calendars.
I’m guessing the misunderstandings being perpetuated are a design flaw by design in Fake Noize talking points. They seem to be astonishingly good at obfuscating the real problems and solutions and just make s**t up to see if something sticks.
Thanks grudz.but what I rilly want is a calendar that counts down the days to the “rapture” when hopefully Earth will be freed of burdensome fauxknee kristians and know-nothings will begin to see how the right has duped them like forever.
3rd best line of the year: “they trust the government they do not trust to….”
That would be a great gift as well, Mike from Iowa. If I understand your strange grammar correctly.
Paladn, I notice that the board di not publish the $25,000 payoff amount in its minutes. “ACTION NO. 61-15-16: Motion by Harberts, seconded by Becker that the resignation of David Eich, a teacher in the Bridge- water Emery School District #30-3, is hereby ACCEPTED effective Thursday, December 24th 2015. Mr. Eich’s contract for the 2015- 2016 school year, is hereby ANNULED. The contract pay off amount agreed upon is APPROVED. School Business Manager Jansen is authorized to make payment to Mr. Eich, in that amount. Roll Call Vote: Becker-Yes; Harberts-Yes: J. Hanssen-Yes; T. Hanssen-Yes; Janssen-Yes; Meyer-Yes; Wollmann-Yes. Motion carried.”
My goodness. Hanssen, Jansen, Jannssen and Hanssen. That sounds like a Flemish law firm or something. But it seems odd they didn’t put the dollar amount in the notes. I suppose that’s for the last 4.5 month’s of work left in his contract, which would make that fellow well above the average teacher pay.
Bear, yes, I see that disconnect regularly. We don’t trust government except when we want to empower it to do the things we want, like killing bad guys, browbeating women seeking abortions, and establishing religion (just wait until Muslim immigrants get smart and win a city council election).
my guess is this is what happened.
Some parent complained, probably one of those where the teacher wasn’t right, but legally wasn’t wrong. There really was no case to fire or punish the guy. But the parent prolly has a little power, and the superintendent really didn’t want to fight it, so rather than just put him on paid leave for the rest of the year, they just paid him out now.
Joe, if that’s what happened, then that’s all the more reason to keep what little labor protection teachers enjoy under continuing contract.