Safety in Numbers
How can the Superintendent can get a 25 percent $100 a day raise while our teachers struggled to receive 1 percent and 4 percent raises? One reason is because Dr. McGaughey is only one individual, and her raise had very little impact on the multi-million dollar District budget. Had the 350 members of the Teachers Union received such a raise it would have "busted the budget" to the tune of over $4.8 million. Teachers Union members must realize that although there is safety in numbers in the collective, there are also drawbacks that can affect their own individual pocketbooks. These same numbers that give the union its strength also can hold down individual teacher salaries.
A Collective Mindset
The Teachers Union needs to evolve out of its old, collective-way of thinking. The union leadership should consider allowing individual teachers, after being union members for a certain number of years and still under the auspices of the union, to negotiate their own salaries with the district. Not all teachers are the same. And yet, the Teachers Union treats and represents them as if they are. These individual teachers — we all know who they are — would be able to do better salary-wise on the own merit than what they are receiving now, collectively, as a part of a union.
…One Giant Leap
However you look at this $31,000 given to Dr. McGaughey, whether as being a well-deserved raise, or as a bonus for a job well-done, or as a gift or pay-back for services rendered behind the scenes, what was advertised and promoted by the School Board as "one small step" for the management team, actually turned out to be "one giant leap," more than a hundred-dollar a day, giant leap, for the retiring Superintendent.
