BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY OCT. 23, 2019) — With news that superintendent of schools Jason “JIV” McCandless is looking to leave town in a hurry, and in response to multiple requests by readers to repost and update a series of columns we did when JIV and the city of Pittsfield agreed to a new contact in 2015, we present today’s digest. We have distilled five columns into this presentation in hopes of educating the voting public on the scam that has been the Pittsfield Public School Department, also known as The Rape of The Kapanskis.

When the PSD and the city goes to the alleged “negotiating” table, the schools come with the hammer of politics — 1,300 empoyees +family+friends and growing. The taxpayers come to the table as the anvil, with nobody — only a set of compromised political animals determined to cave in on every point. That is how we have a school system growing in dollars and employees while it shrinks in students and performance.

If no other issue grabs your attention when you enter the sanctity of the voting booth on Nov. 5, keep all this in mind. Ask yourself if you want to repeat four more years of the same. Under mayor Linda Tyer, the beat has continued unrelieved. Countless millions more for the PSD, more staff, fewer students, all of which bought even poorer performance.

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JIV’s Deal — In September 2015, the Ship of Fools, a.k.a. the Pittsfield School Committee, added two years to JIV’s contract. The new deal gave him a half dozen years at $200,000 per in total compensation. JIV is in the last year of that $1.2 million gift. The contract gives him 25 vacation days and 20 sick days per year, totaling 270. Keep in mind the school year is 183 days by contract. Under this deal, JIV can bank 15 days of vacation each year (90 days) and up to 100 sick days. Thus, he can cash in 190 days of unused time off — more than an entire school year! He gets paid up to 40 of these free days a year, regardless of whether he takes them or not. That’s a total of 200 days on the house.

Then in December 2015, the city signed a contract with school employees.

Cost — Taxpayers will be forced to bear the brunt of pay raises ranging from 15 to 18 percent over the next three fiscal years. This is an astonishingly generous allowance, given the enormous financial pressures being exerted upon citizens owing to a failed economy, a shrinking tax base, and profligate spending by politicians masquerading as leaders. Average total compensation for a teacher in the Pittsfield system is $88,816 per year.

Timing — The city and the union signed the contract on Nov. 3, 2015, the day after the municipal elections. This was true even though they had worked out the details two months before.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) reports that for the 2013-14 school year, the average annual salary for a teacher in the Pittsfield public school system was $64,762, not including benefits. In 2019, that figure is $71,053. before stipends. Counting the generous bennies package, which includes taxpayer-provided 85% of skyrocketing health insurance costs, the figure is $88,816. This is for a contractually defined work year of 183 days.

Remember that number when you hear that PSD teachers are underpaid. Remember that on Nov. 5, when you vote.

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THE PLANET, alone among local media, fished out this information because you deserve to know. You’re the ones footing the bill. What does that money buy you? In rating state schools, the Massachusetts’ Progress and Performance Index (PPI) rates Pittsfield schools just above failing. According to state data, PSD students have a Cumulative Progress and Performance Index (CPI) of 44. “High Needs” students rate 45. In other words, the “typical” Pittsfield student is barely performing above “High Needs.”

This information should be readily available, but it is not. The PSD run by JIV have hidden it from public view.

The 128-page PSD contract has three blank pages — 75, 76, and 77. Click the link and scroll to those pages. All you will see is a title telling you they are for salary schedules and nothing else. In short, when JIV and Yon published the contract, they left out the salary schedule. It took THE PLANET to unearth them.

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The pact covers not just teachers but guidance counselors, department heads, team leaders, unit leaders, head teachers, supervisors of attendance, coaches, librarians, media specialists, teachers of students with special needs, speech therapists, caseworkers, clinical social workers, in-hour suspension teachers, peer mediation counselors, certified ESL teachers, supervisors of vocational education, instructional technology specialists, evening school teachers, ABE teachers, TPP instructors, mentor teachers, school nurses, school nurse leader, occupational therapists, physical therapists, academic coaches, and extra-curricular personnel.

The work year is 183 days. Ten of these days are designated “half days.” Teacher with 10 years and under of employment receive two weeks (10 days) paid vacation. Those with 11 or more years in the system receive 17 days paid leave. Teachers will each receive 15 days of paid sick leave per school year. These sick days may be banked. Each teacher also receives two paid personal days, two paid “professional days,” and three paid “religious observance” days.

UEP officers receive up to 20 paid days off to attend conventions and throw water balloons out of hotel windows. For the typical job in the Dreaded Private Sector, the work year is 261 days. Paid vacation rarely exceeds two weeks, if it is given at all. Sick leave? Maybe a day or two, and rarely is the banking of sick days allowed. Personal days? Professional days? Religious days? Convention days? “You’re lucky to have a job, mate.”

The contract also defines class size, limiting it to 18 (K-3) and 22 (4-5-6, high school). THE PLANET remembers double sessions at PHS, and our 8th grade graduating class at Mt. Carmel School had 35 kids. Today, class size is about less work for teachers and keeping the little monsters in the classroom under some semblance of control.

At retirement, teachers get a $5,000 lump-sum bonus as well as a formulaic severance pay payment. These are the little sweeteners The Suits hide in the middle pages, where taxpayers are not likely to see them. The contract also includes what it calls “differentials.” A “differential” is the amount of extra pay a teacher gets for serving as a department head, unit leader, head teacher, and the like. These amounts range from $68 to more than $7,000.

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This digest of five columns gives you an idea of the circumventions done each time the city agrees to a school contract. Only one candidate, Melissa Mazzeo, has expressed concern over a public-school situation that has clearly gotten out of hand.

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“The rusty chains of prison moons are shattered by the sun” — King Crimson.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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