Administration report

"I've never seen such a large book; I could hardly lift it myself," says Dr. Loughlin in introducing the report, being delivered by the Human Resources Director Stacey DeBoise Luster (who partway through puts her CV up on the screen).

She is starting by giving us the rundown on how many teachers are hired each year, transferred each year, how much professional development is given, how many teachers have mentors, etc. All of this falls under the Human Resources Department.
A lot here about professional development

All new teachers who are not licensed are notified that they must either be licensed or be making progress towards licensure in order to retain their jobs. The State has become more and more stringent on their granting of waivers. A reminder here that teachers must not only the right courses; they have to pass a test.

Average of 59 waivers granted each year (!)
critical shortages in sped, math, science, English
Now talking about Eagle Hill, which is a teacher retention program for young teachers.

(I'm guessing the spin here is "see how much we do" 'though I have to wonder how many people we're employing to do this.)

Coordination of all evaluation of all teachers each year
Coordination of collective bargaining groups
CORI checks are done through parent resources: WAIT, WHAT? "A lot of principals are CORI-ing all of their parents up front."
Substitute teachers

We've got a HR director, an assistant HR director, staffing/mentor coordinator (all of who are doing a Congressional-testimony style lineup at the table in the middle of the Council Chamber), plus a head clerk, principal clerk, principal account clerk, principal clerk (this one for the assistant HR), CORI aide (yes, there is someone doing that full time), part-time clerk (and all of these people have their own slide). Proposed budget for FY10 of $565, 511 (of which about a third is the three executive salaries).

A chart up now of how many districts have how many waviers (we were in the top ten last year, not in it this year). Last year Springfield topped the list (with over 300!); this year Boston did (over 100!).
Now a chart of us going down over the past four years (always interesting to see how far apart the lines are on a chart, hmmm...).
Now a chart on how many teachers in each section are on a waiver, with the comment "Now this is a slide that I think is very important...we are where we should be for a district of our size."

"We should not look at the teachers who have not met these requirements as any different than those teachers who have never had to take an exam...these are master teachers, they can teach ANYthing...considered by the state 'not highly qualified'...continuous progress sounds very easy, but (it isn't)...we've terminated teachers every year...the only difference this year is that we've never done it in public before, and I think that's unfortunate."