Grants provide promise for schools while payroll error impacts teachers

This week has brought good news and bad news. The good news is worth celebrating. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) this week awarded Springfield Public Schools more than $11 million to implement redesign plans the district has made for rapid student improvement at Zanetti, Brightwood, Chestnut, Brookings, Gerena, Homer, Kennedy and White Street schools. This follows DESE’s awarding Kiley Middle School a $2 million grant earlier in the summer.

The grants will allow the schools to move on several initiatives designed to improve the instructional core, including extended instructional time every school day for students. DESE awarded the competitive grants based on each school’s individual plans for school improvement, which were submitted in December (earlier in the case of Kiley) and I am extremely proud of the great work these school teams have accomplished in putting together a strategic, realistic and aggressive approach to redesigning their schools.

The bad news came with the announcement of a payroll mistake that caused more than 1,400 teachers to be overpaid by a total of about $1 million. This news is unfortunate on many fronts. First and foremost, it places an unfair burden on teachers who come to work every day ready to put their best foot forward to teach our students. Good teachers who trusted the district to do the right thing in issuing their pay check. As a district, it has re-directed our efforts, resources and concentration away from what matters most – making sure we provide students with the tools they need to achieve academic excellence.

Our teachers have been amazing during this difficult time and we appreciate their patience. And I would like to assure them that we have been working very hard to fix this problem and put measures in place so that it never happens again.