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Taking note . . .

Observations about public affairs in the nation’s capital
by the editor of The Common Denominator

BEEN THERE: With many of their colleagues lending moral support from the audience, 10 D.C. teachers went before the D.C. Board of Education at its monthly meeting March 17 to protest not having received step increases in their salaries, which were promised last year after a D.C. judge sided with the Washington Teachers’ Union by telling school officials they could not freeze the contractually required pay raises.

The long-simmering issue for about 3,000 of the District’s public school teachers came as no surprise to school officials, who blame numerous problems with the school system’s past personnel practices and a still-incomplete shift to a new computer system for the delay.

But Interim Superintendent Elfreda W. Massie had a special reason to sympathize with the teachers as she listened to them describe their frustration over D.C. Public Schools’ long-standing inability to pay its employees properly. Massie, too, has been a victim of the system.

Community rumors that the superintendent was not receiving a paycheck at all were exaggerated, but until last week, Massie was still being paid her previous, lower salary for being former superintendent Paul L. Vance’s chief of staff. Massie was named interim superintendent when Vance resigned last Nov. 14.

"The money situation has been resolved," Massie said in response to an inquiry about her paycheck problems.

However, the problem for teachers remains unresolved and could continue for several more months, according to John Musso, the school system’s chief financial officer. The problem also affects D.C. school principals, he said.

"They’re due the money, they’ve been due the money and you just try to make the best of a bad situation," Musso told The Common Denominator. "Some haven’t gotten step increases for three years."

Musso said he has recruited assistance from D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi’s staff to expedite processing of the educators’ paper personnel files, which he said all must be reviewed individually due to past problems with feeding incorrect information into the school system’s old computer system.

Musso said he expects to have the problems resolved, in a manner that will prevent recurrent errors and delays, before a new round of step increases come due for teachers and principals this summer.

CROPP’S SECRET PLAN: D.C. City Council Chairman Linda Cropp is being widely, though quietly, criticized for her failure to speak publicly about her proposal to change the governance structure of D.C. Public Schools. While Mayor Anthony A. Williams trotted out his mayoral takeover plan during his annual State of the District speech in February and has been lobbying on Capitol Hill for a congressional change in the city’s home rule charter to effect his desires, Cropp continues to hold details of her plan close to the vest – so close that even school board members were asked to give back copies of her proposal that were distributed during a recent closed-door meeting to discuss it.

One source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described Cropp’s plan as primarily a maintenance of the status quo during the next two years – with the addition of an agreement among the school board, mayor and council to collaborate on the hiring and firing of the superintendent during that time. The board, mayor and council already are working together to recruit the next superintendent with a timetable that finalizes the hiring in mid-June.

Another component of Cropp’s plan might help explain the mayor’s startling change of heart on March 18 when he told the Ward 7 Education Council that he could support the return to an all-elected school board. Cropp, a past member of the previously all-elected board, reportedly is proposing that the current partially appointed board structure be scrapped two years from now in favor of returning to a fully elected board.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator