Many Texas school employees will soon be paying more for their health insurance. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) board recently announced that the cost of TRS-ActiveCare coverage in preferred provider plans for school employees will increase 7 percent. TRS has posted the 2010–11 premiums on its Web site under TRS ActiveCare 
. The new rates go into effect on Sept. 1, 2010. The premiums for TRS Care, the retiree health insurance program, will not change.
Higher copays will also affect TRS ActiveCare members. School employees enrolled in the popular TRS-ActiveCare 2 plan will pay $30 to see a primary care physician, up from $25. The copay to see a specialist under that plan will rise from $35 to $50. School employee deductibles in TRS ActiveCare 1-HD and TRS ActiveCare will increase $100 and $50, respectively.
Salaries for high school principals jumped 5 percent over last year, according to the TASB/TASA Salaries and Wages in Texas Public Schools survey. According to the 2009–10 District Personnel Report, high school principals earn a median salary of $80,340. That’s up from last year ($76,521). High school principals in districts with more than 10,000 students earn a median salary of $104,294 this year. This is the second year in a row where high school principal salaries saw a significant salary increase. For 2008–09, high school principals saw their pay increase by 4.7 percent from the previous year.
Middle school principal salaries are also up but not quite as substantially. These principals earn a median salary of $75,928 for 2009–10, up 4.3 percent from last year. Elementary principal pay is up 4.1 percent this year with a median salary of $71,336.
The average pay increase budgeted for administrator jobs in Texas school districts was only 2.6 percent for this year. The larger increase in median principal salaries suggests that some districts are increasing pay for principals at a faster rate than other administrators in effort to recruit and retain top-quality campus leaders.
Texas gets a C+ on a state report card rating education quality published in the annual Quality Counts issue of Education Week
The grades issued to the state by the education newspaper were mostly average. One high point that was recently touted by the Texas Education Agency was the state’s score in the area of “Standards, Assessments, and Accountability,” a solid ‘A.’ The state scored a ‘B’ in the “Transitions and Alignment” area which includes early-childhood education, the college readiness of graduating seniors, and how well students are prepared for the workforce.
The state’s low grade, a D+, is in the area of school finance. The state’s spending on education received an ‘F.’ In terms of educational equity, the state got a ‘B.’
The state got average grades in the categories “Chance for Success” which examines the obstacles students face; “K-12 Achievement;” and “The Teaching Profession.” Detailed tables list the criteria Education Week uses to evaluate how each state is doing in each area.
Dale Swall is still going strong after more than half a century on the job. Swall, a 4th grade teacher who just celebrated his 80th birthday, teaches at Hebron Valley Elementary School in Carrollton and has no plans to retire. “I’ll stay as long as the school will let me,” said Swall.
He’s been a school superintendent and principal in Peru, a headmaster in Chile, a principal in Columbia, and has taught in Germany and Hawaii. He was hired by Lewisville in 1997 and brings his global perspective to his current job.
Swall hasn’t lost his energy or motivation: he is the first person to get to school every day and the last one to leave. So why teach when he could be enjoying an active retirement? “It sounds trite, but I love working with kids,” Swall said. “Helping and working with people is the best thing you can do.”
—“At 80, Lewisville ISD teacher still helps shape minds, futures,” by Wendy Hundley, The Dallas Morning News, Feb. 3, 2010.
When asked to identify the personal characteristics protected by federal and state discrimination laws, many people add sexual orientation to the list, but current state and federal laws actually don’t address sexual orientation.
However, a few Texas cities have adopted ordinances that prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which in some cases includes gender identification. Fort Worth is the latest city to adopt an ordinance that expands protection based on “transgender status, gender identity, or gender expression, ”which was in response to “information and input from individuals impacted by discriminatory practices” according to city council records. The ordinance specifically defines each of the three protected characteristics. Other large cities with similar antidiscrimination ordinances include Austin, Dallas, and El Paso. These cities address gender identity in the definition of sexual orientation.
Districts in those cities should check local ordinances and consult with their attorneys to determine whether they are subject to their city’s antidiscrimination provisions. For example, the Austin ordinance does not apply to Austin ISD because the definition of employer subject to the ordinance excludes political subdivisions.
—“Fort Worth Expands Gender ID Protections,” Business and Legal Reports, Inc., Society for Human Resource Management, Dec. 18, 2009.
For the first time in 25 years, the majority of institutions of higher education surveyed by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) gave no salary increases to senior-level administrative staff. Approximately two-thirds of the institutions gave no salary increases in 2009 and some institutions actually decreased administrator salaries.
The median salary increase for the surveyed positions—0 percent—was still better than the inflation rate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers was .4 percent lower in 2009 than in 2008.
CUPA-HR’s 2009–10 Administrative Compensation Survey Report reflects the salaries for 77,186 job imcumbents in public and private institutions nationwide. Salaries were reported by 1,280 institutions for 280 select positions, mostly at the director level or above. The median base salary for a chief executive officer at a single institution ranged from $165,950 at associate’s institutions to $375,000 at doctorate-granting institutions.
