Tight budgets make for tough questions in Loudon County

As a college educated resident of Loudon County, with young children in elementary school, I am embarrassed that our leaders cannot understand that our collective "future" lies in providing quality K-12 public education. It is astounding that, as in this story, children are studying in locker rooms, yet Loudon County's taxes are some of the lowest in the state. Can our leaders not see the correlation? Increase my taxes, but please provide my children a quality educational experience.

Commissioners, you can continue to appease the elderly vote in Tellico Village and the Rarity communities with low taxes on their retirement homes and continue to watch young professional couples bypass Loudon County for Maryville, Farragut, and Oak Ridge. There is really no "future" in that.

The school doesn't want money "to simply operate the schools" half the budget overrun is slated for teachers' raises.

Sanford and Son wrote:

The school doesn't want money "to simply operate the schools" half the budget overrun is slated for teachers' raises.

The average teacher salary in Loudon County Schools is more than $2000.00 below the state average.

go vote wrote:

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The average teacher salary in Loudon County Schools is more than $2000.00 below the state average.

It would be fine if the raises were for teacher's, but the majority of the budget increases are for central office staff salary raises....many of who are relatively new to their respective positions and have yet to show their merit. The state is also supposed to allow for a 1.6% increase in their salary, so they should get some type of a raise, not zero, as they might want you to think.

Many counties around us, simply cannot afford to provide raises this year, in fact...people are lucky if they still have a job. Cost of foods and goods are currently down and that should help.

Unfortunately, the BOE has decided to tie to raises to the textbooks, so that if one goes down, they both get shot down. Question is, why aren't textbooks considered part of the instructions supplies which are needed every year? Why would they pull out one of the most necessary learning tools and use it for leverage? Why weren't these textbooks ordered back in April already? And will we really get them on time this year to make a difference? And finally, why aren't we looking towards modern technology (online resources, Prometheon World) instead of costly textbooks for our kids?

Don't always believe what you hear. Read the fine print.

(Regarding teachers: We have some really amazing teachers in our system and we have some really bad ones. We are only as strong as our weakest link. I do not support giving raises to underperforming teachers! Also, if our school's perform, people will naturally want to live here, creating more revenue. As it stands, people with children are leaving LC in search of better schools.)

Our kids are being disadvantaged by having to learn today's material in yesterday's world!

There is always room for improvement in any school system, heck there are those that think even the best system sucks. Stop finding things to complain about and suggest real, viable solutions to problems in a system. Start at the voting booth and be sure you know what that person thinks about schools and it's even better if they have children in the system, then you know they will listen to parents because they have a vested interest in making it better.

abracadabra wrote:

There is always room for improvement in any school system, heck there are those that think even the best system sucks. Stop finding things to complain about and suggest real, viable solutions to problems in a system. Start at the voting booth and be sure you know what that person thinks about schools and it's even better if they have children in the system, then you know they will listen to parents because they have a vested interest in making it better.

You should check out www.loudoncountyschoolsolutions.blogspot.com

go vote wrote:

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The average teacher salary in Loudon County Schools is more than $2000.00 below the state average.

So what????

The average teacher salary doesn't have anything to do with pretending that the schools need the money to operate.

The "underpaid" teachers of Loudon county have secure jobs with excellent benefits, which is more than many other folks in the county have.

I'll bet the "average" worker laid off from Sea Ray, Maremont or some of the other companies that have cut back makes a lot less than the average teacher.

Most surrounding counties have not been able to give teachers raises, or anybody else. What happens when all the county workers want raises? Are you going to give raises just to the teachers?

Quit Drinking the Kool Aid and look at the facts.

Sanford and Son wrote:

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So what????
The average teacher salary doesn't have anything to do with pretending that the schools need the money to operate.
The "underpaid" teachers of Loudon county have secure jobs with excellent benefits, which is more than many other folks in the county have.
I'll bet the "average" worker laid off from Sea Ray, Maremont or some of the other companies that have cut back makes a lot less than the average teacher.
Most surrounding counties have not been able to give teachers raises, or anybody else. What happens when all the county workers want raises? Are you going to give raises just to the teachers?
Quit Drinking the Kool Aid and look at the facts.

Are you saying that school teachers should not make more money than someone that works in a factory, or are you trying to say a teachers pay should somehow be based on the average wages of Loudon County residents?

go vote wrote:

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Are you saying that school teachers should not make more money than someone that works in a factory, or are you trying to say a teachers pay should somehow be based on the average wages of Loudon County residents?

I'm trying to say that the teachers ought to be happy they have jobs in this economy and that the workers laid off from local businesses don't have the money to pay increased taxes to give more money to teachers who are already better off than most.

There is a connection between average wages in Loudon county and teachers' pay. the connection is that the average wages in Loudon county generate the taxes that go to pay the teachers.

As much as I'd like to give teachers a raise I can't give them more money if I'm making less money.

I have to agree with Sanford and Son. It would be great to be able to give raises to teachers, but their salaries, like it or not, are tied to the residents simply by what we can afford to pay in taxes. If we are unwilling to raises taxes or simply unable, as this economy has demonstrated, then we cannot give them more.

The only way to increase the pool of money (ie taxes) is to bring in more taxpayers. One way to do that, might be to build new schools. New schools are attractive and people naturally want to live where there are new and/or GOOD schools, which is the second way to increase your pool of money...increase the level of education at the schools, which in turn, will also attract people to move the area, producing more money, which can then be used to pay higher salaries. Also, building new schools puts people back to work and working people pay taxes, non-working people drain taxes (via public services). Just a thought!

Actually, the best way to increase school funding without increasing the student body in the same proportion is to increase the number of taxpayers who do not have children. Combined with very modest tax increases, that should generate a surplus over and above other services that can be applied to the school system. You should be thankful for your retired population--but not so much that you offer incentives that are counterproductive in terms of school funding.

I believe it is rediculous to compare any position without looking at educational experience or background. To compare the salary of a factory worker who may have started their position straight out of high school, to an educator who has spent tens of thousands dollars for advanced degrees and training is crazy.You would think that Loudon County educators are consistently making requests that are absolutely asinine with the rest of the world. We are losing some very good educators to surrounding school systems, because of these backwoods philosophies. As good ole Leroy Tate would say, "Folks, we're not the best and we're not the worst"! Do you know how many educated people inside and outside our school system laugh at our acceptance of mediocrity? This is not about a county's ability to pay, because the State continues to show based on the average income of a household, versus its tax rate, the county has plenty of room to generate revenue when compared to surrounding counties. Commissioner Miller consistently shows how much money has been added to the school systems' operating budget in the past five years, and it is a lot. He fails to realize how increminating this is to Loudon County, that despite these additions, we are still way behind everybody else! That shows you how abundantly pitiful this County has been for the past forty years. Truth is, education is not valued in Loudon County and never will be until the inner circle is dissolved. "Upset mom", the inner circle will not support GOOD schools, because good parents seek good schools. Lots of people seeking GOOD schools, encourages growth from the outside. Marked growth from the outside, brings new people and new ideas. The "good ole boys" and "inner circle" can not control elections when they have too many people outsiders voting! Loudon County Politics 101!

Furthermore, if you want to reduce the effectiveness of the "good ole boys", we need term limits on all politicians. When you make decisions based on the needs of the county and not on seeking re-election, only good things can happen! We have ignorance that has been perpetuated by the same people for the past twenty years. I am tired of listening to people laugh around the water cooler, while describing some botched up grammatically incorrect rhetoric by a school board member. The two year old tantrums performed by Arp and Tate make you want to drag them outside and spank their little bottoms. You would think that Roy Bledsoe, after 125 years of being on the Commission, and 124 of that serving as chairman, he would actually know correct parlimentary procedures! Folk, people are laughing at you! Please, for the sake of the county, please step down! You are embarrassing this County!

Concerned parent got it right.

As long as county politicians think of the school system as a job bank for friends and family, the Loudon school system will continue to underperform the state, no matter how much money is spent.

Infidel wrote:

Actually, the best way to increase school funding without increasing the student body in the same proportion is to increase the number of taxpayers who do not have children. Combined with very modest tax increases, that should generate a surplus over and above other services that can be applied to the school system. You should be thankful for your retired population--but not so much that you offer incentives that are counterproductive in terms of school funding.

Sorry, but the retirees are notoriously "not" for supporting schools citing the argument that they don't have kids in schools anymore which is why our per pupil funding is lower than most systems in the state, even though we can afford to pay more.

Concerned parent: Excellent argument!

Upset Mom wrote:

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Our kids are being disadvantaged by having to learn today's material in yesterday's world!

Math, English, History has not changed much, and current events can be studied with a newspaper.

Its not like theyre using books printed in 1984.

Why cant they just reorder whatever is missing from the book supplies they have?

And using computers instead makes kids dumber, not smarter.

I work with the Tellico Village retirees every day. They do understand the importance of education and some have told me that even though they don't have children in school, they are still ashamed of the Loudon County schools.

As for Dan's comments about computers making people dumber, maybe he's right, the cmputer he's using to post his comments doesn't seem to have made him any smarter.

History changes every day and so does the way subjects such as math and english are taught. I'm not sure I agree with the changes, but the fact is, educational standards and techniques do change and the books are supposed to change with them.

Dan wrote:

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...and using computers instead makes kids dumber, not smarter.

I can tell, you should get off of yours NOW!!

Dan wrote:

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Math, English, History has not changed much, and current events can be studied with a newspaper.
Its not like theyre using books printed in 1984.
Why cant they just reorder whatever is missing from the book supplies they have?
And using computers instead makes kids dumber, not smarter.

Dude...you are living under a rock! We should be embracing modern technology and utilizing it to our advantage. Books are only re-ordered, by subject, every 7 years. They are heavy, outdated and many times, the data in them have been shown to be incorrect. They also are expensive to boot. Computers are the answer, not the problem!