Full article here - http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=display...051&format=html

"Seventy-one experienced teachers new to Washington County Public Schools learned Thursday their salaries had been misquoted and actually are lower than they were told."

So these teachers were promised a certain salary, took their jobs, and now they're told it was a mistake and that they were overpaid and they're no longer going to be paid what they were told when they were hired.

I would be furious, but of course these teachers aren't stupid:

"New teachers questioned between orientation sessions Thursday told a reporter they were concerned their job status might be hurt if they were quoted."

This is just plain shameful!

""From a retention point of view, I think we'll lose some of these folks," Lynch said."

Gee, do you think so?

Thanks for the link, I never woulld have seen it otherwise. My wife will enjoy it because she used to work for the WCBOE and was forever telling me stories about internal screw-ups. She doesn't get much news about them anymore.

What do you think the public would say if it was a private business pulling something like this? Hiring a group of people on false pretenses, possibly forcing them to relocate, and then after they would have turned down other prospective employers telling them you had made a mistake and their salaries would actually be less.

A $238,000 +++ mistake and yet no names listed, no disciplinary issues brought up, no clear root causes and corrective actions listed. Typcial government. Are the payscales so confusing the staff can't figure them out?

Don't worry folks--I'm sure all those property tax assessments y'all just received are also mistakes and your tax bills will be lower.

Well, unless you have a written employment contract, sorry its a mistake. Those little "offer" letters you get with a salary listed, aren't binding. I've heard of people relocating across the country for a job based on one of those offer letters and when they got there, they were told they didn't have a job.

LOL!!!! I wish!

Unbelivable, the WCBOE always wants more money,then if you question them about it they say things like your against education and the students.
Now we read about this crap and I guess we should just keep our mouths shut.
IMO the board needs alot more oversight.

Don't they have a union, and thereby, certain rights? Regardless, I wouldn't automatically dimiss a lawsuit for fraud if any or all of them chose to file one.

Article in the paper today points out that 40 of the 71 have signed agreeing to stay on the job. While they're quick to point out they expect most of those who haven't yet signed up to stay anyway, that means that at this moment it looks like they could lose as many as 31 teachers because of this fiasco, just days before the new school year begins!

The really sad thing in my opinion is how seemingly flippant the Dep't is about saying they'll just hire replacements for whomever doesn't stay. Like they think good teachers are a dime a dozen or something.

As a taxpayer I don't want us paying any more than we have to, but it would be nice if our government would avoid making misrepresentations regarding their salaries when recruiting new teachers. I hope they have something in mind to repair the harm done to these teachers' morale. I really don't want my kid being taught by a disgruntled teacher - it's bad enough that they're generally underpaid for all that we ask of them.

For fraud, they would have to prove that the Dept. of Ed knowingly misquoted the salaries. Most likely is was a glitch in their payroll system. This doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make it fraud.

Are you sure about that, mstubble? People are usually still held responsible when they make mistakes. When somebody rips you off, saying "oh but I didn't INTEND to defraud you" doesn't seem like a very good defense to me. Maybe it wouldn't technically be fraud, but some other legal term, but I find it hard to believe that the teachers have no legal recourse.

I wonder how many of them were the international teachers, who came from around the world to spend a year here teaching? (Met a couple of them briefly. One from Oz and one from Mexico. Seemed to be nice ladies.)

The union rep has repeatedly declined comment. Sounds kinda useless to me. Takes him a week to think of what to say about this.

Someone (maybe a few people) was (were) personally responsible for a $200K +++ mistake with taxpayer's money. I wonder what will be done about that? Morgan would have been much more concerned, it seems to me, if that much money were cut from the BOE budget by someone's "oversight".

Was the one from Oz a Munchkin?

Just read a letter to the editor from last night's paper that made a good (and funny) point: should Dr. Morgan and staff that screwed-up on this issue have to re-apply for their jobs the way teachers do at schools that "fail"?

Ohhh...I guess that kinda accountability only applies to the peons. What was I thinkin'???

Poop only flows one way, Snoop.

I know. Believe me, I know. But I also know that everyone has a boss that can poop, too, if they choose.

Um, poop doesn't "flow" at all, unless you're ill. It's just that some people's poop doesn't stink.

Remember from a month or so ago that WCBOE was hiring a number of foreign teachers to move here and teach for 3 years or so due to a teacher shortage?

Well, I heard a rumor recently and do not know if anyone here can substantiate it or not, but the rumor was that 5 of these teachers were sent back to their native country because they could not speak English, and one of the "imports" was driving a BOE vehicle and totaled it in a wreck. Does anyone know if this is true or not, and if so, any details???