What The Employees Earn: Granville Public Schools

Granville schools are providing great value for the money!

Our schools are top notch and our per pupil expenditures are less than the state average.

The above teacher salaries are negotiated in the union contract based on years of experience and level of education. There is no merit pay. This is standard in the Ohio Education System. It is not the fault of the Granville Schools, itself. Some people are probably paid more than they are worth, and some people are probably paid less than they’re worth. Pretty much like every other workplace. I think there should be merit pay, but that is a state issue, not a Granville school district issue. Don’t take your dislike of the Ohio Education system out on the Granville Schools, instead talk to your congressman or representative.

Facts Showing Our Schools are a Great Value

GMS RECEIVES AWARD
GMS has been recognized by Making Middle Grades Work for scoring in the top 20 out of 350 middle schools across a 16 state region. We exceeded goals in reading, math and science on the spring 2008 assessment. The assessment is given every other year to the 8th grade class.

COLUMBUS MONTHLY MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Of the 49 school districts in the seven counties in central Ohio, Columbus Monthly listed Granville and Upper Arlington as the only two districts where all of its individual schools have been rated Excellent for each of the past three years. Grandview Heights and New Albany were next on the list with 75 percent of their schools attaining an Excellent rating since the 2005-06 school year.

An interesting factor not addressed in the article is how much each district spends per pupil. Last year Upper Arlington’s “per-pupil expenditure” was $13,907, Grandview Heights was $13,121, and New Albany was $10,947. Granville’s spending per student was $9277. The state average for all school districts was $9939.

Per Pupil Expenditures in Licking County
Of the 11 Licking County School Districts, all spend below the Ohio average PPE of $9939. The lowest PPE is in Johnstown ($7594). The highest is our school district at $9277.

Per Pupil Expenditures in Ohio
The Ohio Department of Education uses a “Similar District” model to help citizens find 20 comparable districts across the state to their own. Factors include the percentage of citizens with college degrees, the percent of agricultural property, the population density, the median income of the citizens, and so on. (To access the database, click here)

Of the 20 similar districts to Granville, five spend below the state average PPE. The highest PPE in the group is Indian Hill Exempted Village Schools at $13,998. The lowest PPE in the group is Springboro Community City Schools at $8680. Springboro is the only district in the group that has a lower PPE than Granville Schools.

The question is with all these salaries, the schools, village, and township, are we getting our money’s worth? Like everything else in our economy in some cases I think we are and in other cases it is a clear case of screwing the taxpayer.

I do think posting these salaries (which I am paying) is the first step in waking up a lot of people at election time and during the next school levy. Maybe not passing the next few levies and kicking out the policy makers is a resonable option.

Clearly we need to address these issues and take appropriate action.

-Polybius

A million dollars of administration….hummm…

I don’t want to get into specifics here as I believe it would not be an appropriate venue, but I am quite struck by some of the salaries.

There are teachers on the list who are making significantly less than they should if they were being paid based on ability and effort.

There are other teachers on the list who are probably better suited for another career who are making significantly more than they should.

I sense little or no merit component in these salaries. If we are trying to encourage our students to excellence, perhaps we ought show them that we reward our teachers for excellence.