BenJoeM says:

SB 199 is a waste of tax payer money. Why are we even considering a piece of legislation that would potentially take money away from schools. Waste!

Sue says:

The "class" that needs to be gotten rid of is the homeroom class in middle school. Depending on the teacher, the kids are supposed to listen to Channel One and then write some sort of short report on it, to demonstrate that they were listening. My daughter, who is a straight A student, uses that 25 min. to read or do homework, but then gets a non-passing grade in that class. She is using her time wisely, and the non-pass grade doesn't affect her GPA, but what a waste of time that class is. Either call it study hall and let the kids do homework in there, or add 5 min. to their other classes.

Scott says:

The TLC class that the legislature requires 7th graders to take is a waste of time. Get rid of this requirement so that real classes can be taught.

Ann P. says:

I'm concerned about the 'waste' in education in the substitute policy in the Jordan District. There are 900 substitutes that can be from a high school grad to a Associates Degree, to a certified teacher, to a retired teacher, etc. in the same pool of teachers that the district sends to the schools. UNLESS a teacher or school prefers a substitute, the school may be getting a substitute who just wants the money and is not qualified to teach. YES, they have passed the background check and the fingerprinting, but that does not mean they are qualified to teach in a classroom! I've heard substitutes who did a puppet show, or who hardly spoke English, or who did not do anything the teacher requested to do while absent. This is a very poor way of spending money in the district's education! There are quality substitutes who a! re certified, in the process of re-certifying, or who can prove they are a good source to be used for substitutes! And YES this is a big deal, because on the average there are 250 substitutes used in a day just in Jordan District alone. And they are making $82/day, unless certified at $90/day. That means $20,500 a day for the $82 day rate. Let's make sure they are quality substitutes!

Rufus B. says:

I saw a report in Box Elder County where a teacher took a Spanish class to SLC to a Mexican Restaurant so they could experience the culture. How ab sured. Teachers seem to spend MORE time trying to figure out how to AVOID teaching than teaching.
Also, when students are allowed (encouraged by the teachers union) to take off from school to PROTEST to the Legislature or anything else, the school should be heavily FINED the first time, and charged with defrauding the tax payers the next time. The students should have to pay for the missing funds.

Utahnonldsnative says:

To much is being wasted on charter schools for a few. To many public schools are not following spec ed laws and working with the state board of ed to do a better job. To many teachers are never even trained in special ed. I had to tell a friends granddaughter's school psychologiist about temp IEP and section 504!
For spec ed help and info and the process and complaint process, go to www.idea.ed.gov

Rochelle says:

More special education waste ...

A diagnosed disability doesn't mean an educational classification reflecting the disgnosed disability. School districts waste who knows how much money giving evaluations that, in some cases, end up negating the medical diagnosis ... denying students the services that student is entitled to and that the state provides money for.

Health care plans aren't followed. In our case, the district refused to believe there was a cardiac arrhythmia they had reccived documentation regarding and refused to call for paramedics. It took the resource officer to call.

When a parent lets the school know of something that isn't working, which Beth Usui's own Do's and Don'ts for IEP meetings asks parents to do, the parent is kicked off school grounds and is unable to monitor adherence to IEPs. The school calls police citing the criminal trespass on school grounds, knowing being at school monitoring compliance is being there on valid business and therfore the trespass law doesn't apply.

Schools give substandard curriculum paid for out of education funds and grant graduation credits for 0, 6 and 10% progress toward annual goals. Goals completed 100% at home are marked 40% and insufficient progress for graduation credits.

Needed technology and services are denied based on personal feelings by administrators ... they don't even follow their own lawyers' recommendations.

Rochelle says:

Education in Utah is broken. AG Shurtleff said it best when he called education a rogue agency who acts without regard to the law or consequences.
Administration in the Jodan School District is wasteful and abusive to parents who exercise their rights. They maintain at least two high priced law firms and involve them (wasting money that should be going into classrooms instead of compromising in the student's best interest as mandated by the USA Supreme Court. They falsify and purge record (Yes, I have official documentation proving that). They make false claims to CPS in order to create animosity they can then use to discredit parents who have been wrongly vilified and who are never infornmed their names are now on the secret list of people who have been reported regardless of innocence. They file false criminalcharges and get away with it because they are believed withourt question. They went so far as to intentionally trifgger an autistic panic so they could send a child who didn't belong in the juvenile court system there after the child was arrested. Juvenile court was less than thrilled and threw the charges back! as no evidence of a creime, but the district created documentation that says they dropped the charges.
Why waste money avoiding their obligations and trying to create precedent that relieves them of those obligations?
I would love to sit down and show you this documentation or at least find out how much money districts spend on legal fees.
Not even the USOE will help. The compliance officer is regularly out of compliance herself with no way to hold the office accountable because they have governmental immunity.
The legislature gave education the tools by which they've become that rogue agency.
They misuse the money and then cry poverty.

Katherine says:

My husband works in construction building the schools. There is an incredible amount of waste when purchasing items for the schools. Custom built light fixtures for $800.00 when the same lights could be bought for under $100.00. There are many instances like this. Flat screen high definition televisions in every classroom, custom designs built into the brickwork, or floors.

Bob says:

The Salt Lake City School district is truly heavy on top, not just in staff, but also in the use of funds. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent on food each year for those that work in the District Office. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year for travel/lodging/food for "training" meetings to other states such as Hawaii, as well as foreign countries like China. Give the students a good education, and don't pamper the staff.

Jason says:

I have kids in elementary school and education is a top priority in my book. I have heard numerous remarks from teachers about the top heavy structure of public education. There are way too many administration and school board employees, and many of them are paid double what a great teacher is paid. The workload of a teacher is almost limitless and it is linked to their effectiveness. The workload of administrators is light and only loosely correlated.

J J says:

The office staff at Granite School District Transportaion. Has free catered steak luncheons. While making the rest of the employees pay for special events. tell me their not something wrong with this picture.

Monica says:

I couldn't agree more with Kassi. My son attends a special autism preschool program for which we are extremely grateful, but it made me furious when I showed up on the first day only to find out that there were 2 new ILLEGAL students in the class whose mother had to have 2 paid employees there to interpret for her and they bent over backwards to accomodate her. She was mad that she was going to have to wait a week to get bus service and threw a fit so this ILLEGAL family got their kid signed up the first day of school to receive special instruction not only for autism but also in SPANISH AND THEY GOT BUS SERVICE THE NEXT DAY!!!!! When we signed up our child, we had to wait 2 weeks for bus service. WHY DO WE BEND OVER BACKWARDS TO ACCOMODATE THESE ILLEGALS!!!! It's infuriating and a HUGE expense.

Kassi says:

I absolutely think that the extra funding used to teach migrant children that are here illegaly in spanish only classrooms takes hard earned money from the mouths of children who speak our national language. STOP SPENDING OUR TAX DOLLARS EDUCATING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE AND PUT THE MONEY BACK INTO THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN WHOS PARENTS PAY FOR IT WITH THEIR TAX DOLLARS

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