UPDATE- Board members Michael Hicks and Mark Stegeman voted against awarding Sanchez the bonus. Adelita Grijalva, Cam Juarez, and Kristel Foster voted in favor of awarding the superintendent $14,898 after determining that he had achieved 95.5 percent of the goals he had set for himself.
Tonight the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board will consider a bonus for Superintendent H.T. Sanchez. The bonus will be made based on a self-assessment by Sanchez of his performance in achieving goals he created for himself.
The superintendent “will provide an update for the 2015-2016 Strategic Plan Year Two Goals for the following areas: Communications, Curriculum, Diversity, Facilities and Finance and to allow the Board to evaluate the superintendent,” according to the agenda.
Board member Michael Hicks stated that he had “concerns with the fact that the superintendent is allowed to evaluate himself. There is nothing in these goals that address student and teacher retention, and attracting more students. The Board has never sat down, as we did with other superintendents, and developed goals. Look at this. Communication. What communication? The fact that he has his name on everything? That’s marketing, that is not communication. At the bottom of staff emails is the phrase “the single biggest problem with COMMUNICATION is the illusion that it has taken place. It appears as if staff is operating under that illusion.”
The score of 100% on Priority 5: Assessments will surprise few. After the superintendent’s goals were set, the administration began sending the benchmark tests to the schools in advance. The exact questions were sent, according to sources at several schools. Armed with the questions, the educators were then not measuring how much students have learned, however they were increasing scores that would in turn the superintendent’s conclusion that he was successful.
This is typically called CHEATING. Superintendents in Atlanta and other cities have been fired for similar actions. Teachers who have done this have been tried and convicted. At a minimum they have lost their licenses to teach.
District sources report that based on his scores, Sanchez will be likely awarded a $15,000 bonus on top of his current base salary of $260,000 plus benefits.
According to his contract, Sanchez can turn in up to 50 days of his 50 vacation days for 2015-2016 at $1,000/day. He can make as much as $50,000 this year just on his unused vacation. He can request compensation for unused vacation days every year, and he has so far. Sanchez’s “Leadership Team” members don’t even have to request compensation. They automatically get paid for their unused vacation at their daily rate of pay at the end of each year.
Teachers have to wait until they leave TUSD to get paid for their unused sick leave. And then, they only get paid at the rate of a daily sub, not even at the rate of a long term sub and certainly not at their own daily pay. Teachers get $0 unless they’ve worked for TUSD for 10 years AND notify TUSD months in advance of the last day of the semester in which they’re leaving. If they leave before the end of the semester or don’t give notice far enough in advance they can lose out.
This is just one more example of the failure of the Tucson Education Association to represent its members. The difference between the shoddy way teachers are treated by TUSD and the way Sanchez is treated as if he was royalty is never challenged by TEA. The leadership of TEA must suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, where victims identify and look up to those who victimize them. The union has steadily lost members because of these failures and now exists on the sufferance of the administration and Governing Board. Anytime a union’s membership drops below 50% of the bargaining unit it can be decertified by the employer, or some other entity, such as a competing union or even a group of dissatisfied bargaining unit members can gather enough signatures to compel an election to determine who will represent the bargaining unit. TUSD leaders…Sanchez and Grijalva in particular…must live in constant fear that some disaffected teachers will organize themselves, compel an election, and replace TEA with a union that will both stand up for TUSD teachers and no longer be an automatic “amen choir” for Sanchez and the Governing Board majority.
On Monday, in anticipation of today’s vote, the ADI sent the following questions to the superintendent:
1) One of the goals refers to “answers emails.” I rarely receive answers from you to my direct questions. Will your answers or failure to answer count in your self-assessment?
2) TUSD is supposed to launch a “unified brand” what exactly is that brand? If we do not know what it is, is it possible your sales efforts are not that successful?
3) One of the goal is to have “70% of staff showing awareness of District accomplishments.” Would that include accomplishing making it into the nightly news for discipline problems?
4) Only 54% of your staff members responded to your survey. That is rather low participation. How will you weight that?
5) By June 2016, a minimum of 10 TeamTUSD groups will be identified and featured to spread messages. What messages?
6) All in all you have given yourself some pretty high marks on some less-than-accurate claims. How do you justify this, and will you simply rely on your PR department to rationalize them?
As usual, Sanchez did not respond.
The Governing Board meeting will be held at the Duffy Family Center, 5145 E. 5th St. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m .
| COMMUNICATIONS | |
| Priority #1: Strategic Plan | 100% |
| Priority #2: Internal Communications | 97% |
| Priority #3: TUSD Brand | 88% |
| Priority #4: Responsive Communication | 100% |
| Priority #5: Community Engagement | 100% |
| CURRICULUM | |
| Priority #1: Curriculum | 100% |
| Priority #2: Instruction | 97% |
| Priority #3: Professional Development | 96% |
| Priority #4: Data | 100% |
| Priority #5: Assessment | 100% |
| Total | 98.6% |
| DIVERSITY | |
| Priority #1: Reflective Curriculum | 100% |
| Priority #2: Recruitment & Retention of Diversity | 97% |
| Priority #3: World Language Options | 80% |
| Priority #4: Advanced Learning Opportunities | 100% |
| Priority #5: Community Engagement | 100% |
| Total | 96% |
| FACILITIES | |
| Priority #1: Green Planning | 100% |
| Priority #2: Long-Range Facilities Plan | 97% |
| Priority #3: Preventative Maintenance | 80% |
| Priority #4: Technology Plan | 100% |
| Priority #5: Safety and Security | 100% |
| Total | 100% |
| FINANCE | |
| Priority #1: System & Process Creation/Refinement | 100% |
| Priority #2: Maximize Existing Revenue & Resources | 97% |
| Priority #3: School Finance Education & Transparency | 80% |
| Priority #4: Legislative Advocacy | 100% |
| Priority #5: External Funding to Support Strategic Priorities | 100% |
| Total | 100% |