Any School board members out there?

I was thinking for various reasons of running for our town board of education...There is actually 3 openings this year so its almost a guaranteed deal as they usually cant find that many suckers to do it....

Anybody ever served on a school board....I'm comfortable with putting in some work to be good at it but I really have no idea what I could be getting myself into.

And do you have much to do over the summer because there is fishing and all:fam:
 
My father-in-law is on the school board in a small rural town in sw ga. he was an educator for 20 years and wanted to still be involved after retiring. its a verysmall town, so things are pretty informal, most of his problems have been dealing with the state over funding state mandated projects with no state monies. in our county in fl, it is a paid position($32000 annually). i have always thought the school board should be made up of non-educators and more business people.

go for it, i'll vote for ya....
 
Dang, Phat, besides the lovely weather, good fishing and relatively low taxes, I now have another reason to move to Florida and take on a what I would think is the part time position on the school board at $32k per year.
 
My wife is a special Ed teacher for 25 yrs and deals with a lot of politics in the school , take the job if you have the time to commit its to a good cause. New jersey teachers are some of the lowest paid teachers in the nation.

You know when you have a friend that works for the twp in the water and sewer dept that doesnt need a college education and is making 78,000 dollars a yr and a teacher who needs a college degree and has a masters in special ed that just broke the 55k
 
Not to offend or get off track but

Teachers aren't the only ones with poor pay. If they want more money, they can tutor on the side for a pocket full of cash or find a summer job to supplement their pay. The tough question is what wage is appropriate? (Florida pays $35,000 to start plus benefits straight out of college, not exactly horrible. Not sure about NJ pay.) Teachers need to make a liveable wage, without question. So should firemen, police and our military. Those positions start at about the same pay or less, have bad hours, much higher risk and no summer break. They need a bump first, then the teachers, then I would like a little if possible ;-) But I ain't worth it, I spend all day surfing when I should be selling if I could only find some buyers...with money.

I don't think any aspiring teacher, soldier, firefighter or police officer thinks about the money first. They want to help the greater good first and make a living second. It takes a special person to be a GOOD at all of these jobs. Mrs. Slinger is a super special person for her work with the special ed students. Noble jobs and my hat is off to every one.

Wilson,
I would think the School Board job would be riddled with politics as it is here in FL. You are a better man than I for even considering the job. Good luck in whatever you decide. Reel is right on the money..
 
Yea, the pay scale thing is kind of hard to get a handle on....my wife is a School Psychogist in a neighboring town....everyone with exception of principals, superintendants and business administrators (and a couple other things like curriculum directors and such) are all on teachers pay scale...its public information posted on line......there's basically a a chart with years of experience (they call them steps) down the paper and level of education across the top....

these pay scales vary from district to district depending upon size but not by probably more than 10 or 15%....some districts max you out with less years while some pay better for advanced education. (NJ has 605 school districts if you can imagine that for such a small state..., half the reason our taxes are so high)

In my wifes school district starting pay for bachelors, 0 years is $43,000 and maxes out at $83,000 after 23 years....each level of education above a bachelors tacks on 4k or so a masters +45 tops out at close to 100K. and of course the union renegotiates every 3 years so those numbers usually increase 4-8% every 3 years.

What gets goofy I guess is that people doing the same job can make twice as much as another person because they have been there longer...

Being that they only work 183 days a year compared to the average guys 240 or so, the benefits are top notch (at least in her district) , still a very good pension (but will see what Willy's new governor has to say about that:-)....and of course we cant forget tenure....after 3 years you are locked in unless you go "Mary Kay Letourneau" on one of your students....In this economy I couldnt feel any better about my wifes position which is HUGE.

I do agree with you both....I know tenure is supposed to offset the introductory low pay but its hard for a person to go through college to look forward to 35 to 43K a year job....but considering the people out there losing their jobs without prospects of another, teachers at the moment are sitting pretty.

not really sure why I'm boring you guys with this crap but I'm at work and not interested in doing any more today....
 
my wife is also in education(25 years) it has been a great job for her with benefits and time off to have kids, etc. right now, i'm REALLY glad she's working cause my irrigation work is slooooow. i ve told her the worst thing about teachers is the best one in the system and the worst one in the system gets paid the same.
my daughter is graduating this summer with a BA in history and plans to go into teaching, i tried to get her to go into pharmacy, oh wellll..
 
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