Aldine ISD Superintendent Dr. Bamberg meets with students at AISD Aldine ISD Superintendent Dr. Bamberg meets with students at AISD Board chambers. Photo courtesy of AISD

All students at Aldine ISD’s Reese Academy attend physical
education, drama, art, computer technology and music
classes as part of a three day class rotation. Many students
also take dance and violin classes.
                         Photo: Aldine Independent School District

Teachers have a reputation for being overworked and underpaid. Year after year, teachers and union representatives have lobbied Washington, D.C. and Austin, petitioning legislators for a much needed pay increase. Washington and Austin finally got the message. In 2009, legislators passed H.B. 3646 mandating that raise, resulting in a pay increase of $1,014 for each educator and other designated professionals.
Dr. Wanda Bamberg, Superintendent of Aldine ISD, wishes they hadn’t. Bamberg says last year, she personally spoke with educators throughout the district, explaining to them why she was going to recommend that educators forego their raise this year.

“We talked about the need to hold tight because we have given raises in Aldine for at least the past three years,” she said. “Everybody had gotten at least a 2 percent raise. And so we were sending the message throughout the district that we needed to hold firm. We wanted to save jobs, save programs. We were not going to recommend a raise. And so we found out in late spring that we were mandated to give a raise, so half of the money that we got went in raises.”

But government actions left the already strapped school district without a choice. Like most school districts, Aldine ISD was struggling to find a balance between its growing student population and its shrinking finances. Administrators had hoped the additional dollars awarded to states would help ease the financial burden felt by school districts due to the recession. But the superintendent said the funds received from state legislators came with strings attached.

H.B. 3646 mandated, among other things, that Texas school districts use federal stimulus dollars allocated to the state to provide educators, librarians, speech pathologists, certified counselors and nurses with a pay increase for both “the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school year by the greater of $80 per month for each employee’s share of $60 per [Weighted Average Daily Attendance] in 2009-2010, factoring increased costs for social security and retirement.”

This left the district with only $7.3 million remaining of the state allocated $13.9 million. What happened to the remaining dollars? Bamberg says she recommended that 1.2 million of those dollars be applied toward pay increases for non-professional personnel, such as teaching assistants, kitchen workers, etc….

“The child nutrition workers didn’t get a raise. The bus drivers didn’t get a raise. So the board approved at my recommendation a 1.5 percent raise for all of the hourly employees and a 1 percent raise for the rest of the professional employees who were not included in the legislation,” Bamberg said.

According to her, the decision to withhold raises had already been taken out of her hands. Additionally, she says she felt that the people who needed the raise most didn’t get it. Bamberg says she understood the fact that everybody needed a raise and, due to the uncertainty of the future, she says, they feared this might be the last raise for all teachers for a long time.

However, she expressed that nobody believes Aldine educators deserve a raise more than she. Bamberg is always quick to brag on the hard work and progress her school district has made. Aldine ISD has experienced tremendous success, gaining national recognition through its achievement of the coveted Broad award. The $2 million Broad Prize for Urban Education, established in 2002, is the largest education award in the country given to school districts. It is awarded each year to honor five large urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among low-income and minority students.

“Aldine shows us that it’s possible for a district facing tough circumstances to get excellent results,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We need to highlight the success of Aldine and districts like it so that others can follow their examples and lift up all students.”

As the winner of The Broad Prize, Aldine ISD received $1 million in college scholarships for  seniorsgraduating in the spring.

Aldine ISD, which graduates 83 percent of their students, was recently named best urban ISD in the nation. And all of Aldine’s schools are rated by the state of Texas as recognized or better. It has also received tremendous recognition for its magnet school programs. Inarguably, the district has achieved success coveted by major school districts throughout the nation.

What’s especially commendable about the success of this district is the fact that the district did so despite the challenges of a largely minority and socio-economically depressed population—two factors that other districts use as handicaps to excuse their low performance and high dropout rates.

But raises would severely limit the amount of the stimulus money left in the district, $6.1 million.

However, faculty and staff raises weren’t the only factors competing for stimulus dollars. Another chunk of stimulus dollars were allocated to programs requiring a mandatory percentage of all revenue, in other words, compensatory education ($2.3 million) and the high school allotment ($3.8 million). All of these forces combined to diminish the impact of the increased state funding, practically nullifying its ability to compensate for years of underfunding by the state.

While Bamberg admits the money from the pay raises would not have been enough to save the cash strapped school district, every little bit helps. This is especially so since the state froze revenue for districts in 2005-2006 and there has been no increase since 2005. Additionally, Aldine added a much needed school, Marcella with additional costs of $4.1 million and Norma Leza, costing the district $2.2 million. Bamberg says the new schools were necessary in order to meet the needs of the growing population in that area. And the needs for new schools continue to grow and deep cuts must still be made.

“We have made budget cuts over the years, but this one doesn’t seem to have any light at the end of the tunnel,” Bamberg says. According to the superintendent, Aldine is faced with the unpleasant reality of having to cut several magnet school programs and eliminate at least one school. And if things don’t turn around, other cuts could follow.