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Thread: The Machine Won...but what did they win???

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by Same Old, Same Old View Post
    You guys need to make up your mind.

    Either you want the most qualified teachers to be hired or you want them to be Lackawanna residents. 9 times out of 10 you will not get both.
    I only passed on some info to Wake Up New York. The fact is there is no residency policy. Believe me the City of Lackawanna is not overloaded with QUALIFIED teachers. Some employed and unemployed teachers that live here may be certified, that does not make them QUALIFIED to teach. I also include the employed teachers that work here but do not live here. Does the Superintendent and School Board hire the most QUALIFIED, absolutely not. The school district would not rank 98th from the bottom if they did. Alot of big bucks being passed out for failure. This would be a great project for the new mayor elect, start a residency rule, you must live here, or move here to be employed. Present employees included, starting from the top down, city and school. If you choose not to reside here, your gone, fired, and a replacement soon to follow, its called growth. Will it happen, probably not, but it makes sense to me.
    Last edited by getalife123; November 14th, 2011 at 06:59 PM.

  2. #62
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    Chew on this Wake Up New York, your concerns of residency is valid. But that is only part of the problem. When you have multiple people from one household working two full time or one full time and part time job, city/school, the salaries, benifits, retirement add up to big bucks over the lifetime of their employment. What does the city receive in return from that one family, one yearly set of of low tax dollars. Put a one person cap on employment per household. I'm sure I will get bashed for this one, so what.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by getalife123 View Post
    I only passed on some info to Wake Up New York. The fact is there is no residency policy. Believe me the City of Lackawanna is not overloaded with QUALIFIED teachers. Some employed and unemployed teachers that live here may be certified, that does not make them QUALIFIED to teach. I also include the employed teachers that work here but do not live here. Does the Superintendent and School Board hire the most QUALIFIED, absolutely not. The school district would not rank 98th from the bottom if they did. Alot of big bucks being passed out for failure. This would be a great project for the new mayor elect, start a residency rule, you must live here, or move here to be employed. Present employees included, starting from the top down, city and school. If you choose not to reside here, your gone, fired, and a replacement soon to follow, its called growth. Will it happen, probably not, but it makes sense to me.
    I think you want your cake and be able to eat it too. You want the most qualified but then you want a residency requirement. You would be even further limiting your options on who to hire. Who cares where a person lives?

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by getalife123 View Post
    Chew on this Wake Up New York, your concerns of residency is valid. But that is only part of the problem. When you have multiple people from one household working two full time or one full time and part time job, city/school, the salaries, benifits, retirement add up to big bucks over the lifetime of their employment. What does the city receive in return from that one family, one yearly set of of low tax dollars. Put a one person cap on employment per household. I'm sure I will get bashed for this one, so what.
    And this one is worse than your opinion on the residency requirment. A one person cap on employment per household????? So if Mary gets a job and falls in love with Jack one of them have to quit to get married?

    I think you need to focus on the process of the selections and not the selections themself.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by Same Old, Same Old View Post
    I think you want your cake and be able to eat it too. You want the most qualified but then you want a residency requirement. You would be even further limiting your options on who to hire. Who cares where a person lives?
    What cake and eat it too? A residency rule would be a beginning to solve many problems. Once you hire a teacher they would have 3 to 6 months to move back to the city. First it would give the teachers a stake in the game. By living in the community their children would be attending the schools within the district or they could spend their hard earned dollars sending their children to private schools like many of us have had to do. I think that would be an option that would be very costly to them. Secondly any teacher that does not return to the city will be eliminated. That would result in giving us the chance to change the face of the school system and bypass the problems created by tenure. It would not guarantee better teachers but we could not do any worse. Thirdly there is no shortage of qualified teachers in Western New York or thoughout the country. I'm sure that the teachers union/administration would love to make you believe that there are not enough qualified teachers to fill the open positions. The fact is that most of the teachers that are graduating today have to leave Western New York in order to obtain work. They move out of state to gain employment. Many of those teachers along with graduates would love to just have a chance to move back or stay here. It is called the law of supply and demand. Doing nothing absolutely guarantees the status guo. That means high pay and no results and failed students. Fourthly, the teachers would be paying taxes back to the city. Stop the crap, think out of the box, problem solving is not a strengh of the Lackawanna School District. BINGO
    Last edited by getalife123; November 15th, 2011 at 05:22 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Same Old, Same Old View Post
    And this one is worse than your opinion on the residency requirment. A one person cap on employment per household????? So if Mary gets a job and falls in love with Jack one of them have to quit to get married?

    I think you need to focus on the process of the selections and not the selections themself.
    The biggest problem with nepotism is it continues the same thought process as before. If the thought process is flawed there will never be any change. Do you really think that just a handful of families have all the answers to the problems facing this city? I think not. That is the precise system that we currently live with now. The fact is that Jack and Mary usually don't meet at work in Lackawanna. The way it works here is that Jack is related to somebody, gets a job and then gets one for his wife Mary, and Mary's sister gets a job then their 14 kids get a job its called being politically connected. So, maybe we have all of ten extended families running this city. All of them thinking the same, they primary goal is to protect their jobs and not what is best for the city. Most private sector businesses completely frown upon the fraternization of employees.
    Last edited by getalife123; November 15th, 2011 at 05:49 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by getalife123 View Post
    What cake and eat it too? A residency rule would be a beginning to solve many problems. First it would give the teachers a stake in the game. I think that would be an option that would be very costly to them. Secondly any teacher that does not return to the city will be eliminated. That would result in giving us the chance to change the face of the school system and bypass the problems created by tenure. It would not guarantee better teachers but we could not do any worse. Thirdly there is no shortage of qualified teachers in Western New York or thoughout the country. I'm sure that the teachers union/administration would love to make you believe that there are not enough qualified teachers to fill the open positions. The fact is that most of the teachers that are graduating today have to leave Western New York in order to obtain work. They move out of state to gain employment. Many of those teachers along with graduates would love to just have a chance to move back or stay here. It is called the law of supply and demand. Doing nothing absolutely guarantees the status guo. That means high pay and no results and failed students. Fourthly, the teachers would be paying taxes back to the city. Stop the crap, think out of the box, problem solving is not a strengh of the Lackawanna School District. BINGO

    "Once you hire a teacher they would have 3 to 6 months to move back to the city."

    You are assuming they lived in Lackawanna previously.

    "By living in the community their children would be attending the schools within the district or they could spend their hard earned dollars sending their children to private schools like many of us have had to do."

    Now you are assuming all teachers have children.

    You want change but this is the farthest thing from change. Currently, a majority of Lackawanna teachers are from Lackawanna hence getting hired with connections. Having a residency requirement would only worsen the current practice.

  8. #68
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    Post Just the way I was thinking about it........

    Quote Originally Posted by getalife123 View Post
    The biggest problem with nepotism is it continues the same thought process as before. If the thought process is flawed there will never be any change. Do you really think that just a handful of families have all the answers to the problems facing this city? I think not. That is the precise system that we currently live with now. The fact is that Jack and Mary usually don't meet at work in Lackawanna. The way it works here is that Jack is related to somebody, gets a job and then gets one for his wife Mary, and Mary's sister gets a job then their 14 kids get a job its called being politically connected. So, maybe we have all of ten extended families running this city. All of them thinking the same, they primary goal is to protect their jobs and not what is best for the city. Most private sector businesses completely frown upon the fraternization of employees.

    You hit on "it" getalife...........Lackawanna is broken and someone conscientiously did "it". Some people accept Lackawanna for what it is and others of us can not because we want "it" better for OUR kids than we have "IT"!
    I watched the "machine" ALL day on election day, their cell phones were glued to their ears, desperately calling in their markers. I found it comical, but sad.

    We might as well change our name to Hazzaranna......." Jefferson Davis "J.D." Hogg, better known as "Boss" Hogg, is a fictional character featured in the American television series The Dukes of Hazzard. He was the greedy, unethical commissioner of Hazzard County. A stereotypical villainous glutton, Boss Hogg always wore an all-white suit with a white cowboy hat and regularly smoked cigars."

    Not name calling, just tired of the greed in Lackawanna, NY that has destroyed what once had clean, safe neighborhoods and a vibrant business community. All because patronage was more important to them than the betterment of OUR City and the general welfare of the people who live in it.
    Even the Federal Gov. has a LAW on the books against nepotism, because they know nepotism breeds incompetence.
    I have no hard feelings......I will respect the new administration as our leaders now, because I trust God's path for Lackawanna. I just hope they will implement the "Transparent Government" they told us they will, from the get-go, as they go about filling all of their campaign promises.
    Last edited by andreahaxton; November 16th, 2011 at 09:54 AM.

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by Same Old, Same Old View Post

    "Once you hire a teacher they would have 3 to 6 months to move back to the city."

    You are assuming they lived in Lackawanna previously.

    "By living in the community their children would be attending the schools within the district or they could spend their hard earned dollars sending their children to private schools like many of us have had to do."

    Now you are assuming all teachers have children.

    You want change but this is the farthest thing from change. Currently, a majority of Lackawanna teachers are from Lackawanna hence getting hired with connections. Having a residency requirement would only worsen the current practice.
    I never made the assumption that any teacher in Lackawanna are former Lackawanna residents. I said that if they want to work here they have to live here. The 3 to 6 month period would give then plenty of time to find a home and move. If the teacher wants the job and is qualified they would be required to set up residency in the district.

    The fact is that our teachers have little or no stake in seeing the numbers improve. If they don't have children now they may in the future. Or try this thought, as home owner here the increased value of there homes as a result of an improved school district maybe the incentive that is necessary to see the numbers move. People do not consider Lackawanna for their personal residency because of the failure of the school system. The Buffalo News released the most current graduate rates for those students that started their freshman year in a school district. Lackawanna has a 62% graduation rate. Fantastic! That means that 4 out of 10 students will live in poverty. What employer is going to hire an employee without a high school diploma? This is what this district perpetuates. We need new blood. Considering the graduation rate as exceptable is assine. Education is the primary way to break the stranglehold of poverty. Getting teachers from other areas to move into the city can give the district a different perspective. Doing nothing will guarantee the same old same old.

    Until we get a vast amount of openings in the district we will never be able to change the system. A residency rule may open those positions that would enable us to make immediate changes that we desperately need.

    The vast majority of teachers do not live in Lackawanna. I do not care where the old staff came from but they need to live here now. If they refuse to move to Lackawanna then we can remove them and replace them with new qualified teachers that are willing to live here.

    The no residency rule has failed the children now. Failure is our norm and we need to make changes that will improve the outcome for our children. Do nothing will repeat the same graduation rate that currently exists sending 4 out 10 to proverty. That would be a crime. Our children deserve more than that.
    Last edited by getalife123; November 16th, 2011 at 12:00 PM.

  10. #70
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    Well said!!!!!!
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

  11. #71
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    Post Call the Bflo News 849-4444 and ask for a story on pros and cons of residency........

    I believe the word is, PRIDE.......when they got rid of all the schools in the First Ward, pride flew out as soon as the wrecking ball hit. Do you believe the deals that went down at that time???---A lot of it had to do with busing too. Sad. I heard that when the crane went to hit the Beth Park school , that the school was built so strong--that it broke the wrecking ball thing.

    Vision.....lack of vision has done as much damage as the wrecking ball in Lackawanna. Lots and lots of good buildings torn down that could have been salvaged. The decision makers made a white elephant of Lincoln Junior High, it is a million to take out the asbestos they say and a mil to demo. The decision makers who caused the demise and decay of Lincoln should be held accountable; go talk to the good people who live in back or front of the elephant. I feel so bad for them and wish that someone had the vision to sell it for Senior--Special needs apts. when it first went down, it is a perfect location.
    Lack of vision again, Lord knows we tried before Martin Rd was built but the prejudiced people did not want their kids over here. Lack of City-wide pride has a lot to do with how the kids feel about themselves. Now we have the carcass of Lincoln Annex, and neighborhoods lacking the grand integrity that should have been planned for.

    I just emailed Jay Tokasz our Buffalo News reporter requesting an article on the residency pros and cons.
    Buffalo has one for a reason...it would be interesting to analyze all the facts on it ....see what our neighboring School Districts policies are.
    Do you think the LSD-BOE will let us vote on the residency policy when we vote for the Budget in May?

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    If you believe the taxpayers mostly elderly wil allow someone to run for office in Lackawanna who doesn't live here....you need to wake up.....will never happen...residency is enforceable and has been in my cities in NY State...in the USA the Constitution allows voters to vote for the candidate they feel best fits the position...they did that inLackawanna.....several cases have been cited in law journals and the newspaper regarding residency...the latest was in Bflo...Adamczyk was removed from the ballot by the Apellate Div..in Rochester....Dion will not run again until he addresses the residency issue and move to Lackawanna...not just say he does....and why would anyone run for office and take a large pay cut from their teaching job ???????/ follow the money .......and if Dion really wanted changes...he has his large congreation ...he could have started there....but didn't....people are not stupid..

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    The majority spoke......some won.....the others lost.......

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    Quote Originally Posted by Change2011 View Post
    The majority spoke......some won.....the others lost.......
    Wow yeah, the election was two weeks ago, did you just wake up??? Why are you spewing your opinions regarding the candidates that lost now??? What is your point? A little late I would say. Also when your talking about fraud, lots of people commit fraud in this city. Be careful when you throw stones expect return fire. Your actions may have unexpective consequences.

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