Tag Archives: substitute teachers

Times are tough out there. I don’t have a lot of perspective yet, but there’s no doubt the economy is hurting. And that means not only are real people hurting, but – as the Wall Street Journal reports – so are private schools: Trinity Episcopal School survived Hurricane Ike last fall. But then another storm hit — the economy. The Galveston, Texas, school, where tuition is between $5,000 and $8,000 a year, has seen its enrollment drop 12%, says David Dearman, the head of the school. Many parents of its students were among the 3,000 workers laid off by the area’s largest employer, the University of Texas Medical Branch. At the end of 2008, the school’s endowment was $800,000, down about 20% from July. The school has ramped up donation efforts through its Web site, and held car washes and bake sales. It stopped using substitute teachers — other staff members now step in when a teacher is out sick. “Our school will survive, but it will take years to recover,” Mr. Dearman says. Trinity Episcopal School is one of many kindergarten-through-12th-grade private schools caught in the middle of an economic tempest: anemic endowments, dwindling donations, financially strapped parents slashing […]

Over at the catchy Flypaper blog, education guru Mike Petrilli talks about his local Maryland teachers union’s get-out-the-vote strategy for Election Day: Montgomery County schools are not only closed today (purportedly to protect students from intruders, as most schools are used as polling places) but were also closed yesterday. Which means that MCEA’s 12,000 members could spend a long weekend campaigning for Democratic candidates (most likely, across the Potomac in Virginia), and then volunteer at polling places today, all without taking a single hour off of work. That’s pretty smart politically, but what’s the justification for students to miss two days of school in the middle of the fall semester? A good question. I am pleased to report that there seems to be no evidence of this sort of thing going on along Colorado’s Front Range. A quick search of the eight largest school districts in the Denver metro area – Jefferson County, Denver, Douglas County, Cherry Creek, Aurora, Adams 12, Boulder Valley, and Littleton – show they are all in regular session today on Election Day (as well as yesterday). That’s good news, though I’m already wondering if I should be careful about giving out unsolicited ideas here. While […]