Welcome back to another episode of the Paul Palma Tips and so forth with me, your host, Tamara Davis Brown. Have a good friend that I'm interviewing today, Ms. Stephanie Powell. Now, I know Ms. Powell because she and I both had children, it had Prince George's County schools together, specifically John Hanson Montessori School. They were both very active in our PTSA. Little did I know though, I don't think I knew at the time that she was also an educator in the school system. And I just knew her. We called ourselves the PTSA Warriors back in the day because if there was anything that the Montessori School needed or lacked, we were on it. We were at the school board meetings, we had the administrators to come in to our school and said, hey, we need to protect the integrity of the Montessori program and curriculum. You guys are getting way too off focus with all these tests, state mandated tests and everything. And so we really advocated for a true and authentic Montessori curriculum and classrooms. At the pre-K level all the way up to eighth grade. So welcome Ms. Powell, glad to have you on all politics is local. I am so glad to be here with you today. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So we're going to just jump right in. So besides being a Montessori mom, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Give us a little bit more bio for our listeners. Oh, absolutely, thank you. I'm so glad to have you when you were sharing that. I was glad you're here. We did a lot. Not only did we do it for our children, but we also instilled that our children now become advocate. And so I have been in the state of Maryland for 28 years. And I'm more specifically, I've been in Clinton, Maryland for about 21 years of those 20 years. I graduated of Howard University. I graduated with a pre law degree administration of justice. And then I came back, went back to New York, originally from Jamaica by way of New York. Went back into New York, came back to get my master's in education. And so at the time when I was advocating for our children, I was not working in Prince George's County. I was working in the District of Columbia Public School. And so I, yes, so I wasn't educator then, but many individuals didn't know because it was just really I wanted them to focus on as you said, making sure that our children get what they need. And so been advocating for for a while, been a part of the union for a long time out of Washington, DC as well. I am a mom, I love to advocate for for our children. I love public education. And I love to really make sure that not only are children are getting what is needed, but also our educators as well. Those are the things that I've been doing, been an elected building rep for my school, been mentor to new teachers, been delegate for NEA and MSEA. And so that's just a little bit, you know, of my background. And I've been an educator for over 32 years. We are both Howard University grads, H you. You know, you know. So glad to hear that. I don't think I knew that about you that you were Howard graduate as well. So we know that the advocacy runs deep. Absolutely. You know, at the law school, they called us. We were told to be social engineers. And that's what really kind of led me into this whole life of public policy following civics and really using my law degree to be a benefit to the community. To break down what the law actually says in layman's term and what it really means once it's implemented and impacted and, you know, try to break through that trend that legally is and bring transparency and accountability for our government. Because I think the only way that we can have a government that's of the people by the people and for the people is to have an educated electorate that you just absolutely. And that's the whole purpose of this podcast. It's not just it's for you to move past being going to the ballot box and voting and saying I've done my constitutional duty and then you just let the legislators and those you elected in office, you know, continue to do whatever they want to do at will. And we see where our government is now in terms of the about federal government, but it trickles down also to our local government at school boards and so forth. And so I think it's really important that we have these conversations about local government as well. And so why the podcast is is named all politics is local because what really matters at the end of the day is what's happening under local school boards, what's happening in your county councils city council meetings. All of those things affect you more directly and impact you more directly than even at the federal level. And so change at the federal level so I can't have an impact this more directly and certainly as we've even experienced it in our own household. But so tell me how long you have actually been an educator in PGCPS because you said you've been an educator for over 30 years. Yes, in PGCPS how long have you been an educator? It's around 20 years. Okay, so now tell us about and I had no idea until I started receiving your emails of late that PGC even had a black caucus. Because for those of you who are listening that may not live in in Maryland or specifically in Christchurches County, Christchurches County is predominantly African American County in terms of population. And so most of the educators and administrators for that matter and members of our school board are African American. So tell us about the PGC a black caucus kind of how it got started. Well, you actually needed go ahead. Absolutely. And so I am a part of the any a black caucus. So that is the National Education Association black caucus and I recognize being in in Prince George County. And as you stated majority of our educators are predominantly black and I realized that there was a missing piece where we did not have a caucus to address the needs of our black and brown students and educators. And so when I went to the last I went to the last NEA RA that's the National Education Association. And so we met every once a year. I connected with the black caucus, the NEA black caucus, which I'm a member of. And one of the action item that we wanted I said it was important for us to be able to start a black caucus within our local. thing that I took. And you know, I went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and they had a conference there. I shared with them. This was what I wanted to do. And, you know, they gave me all, you know, all of the things that I needed to be able to move forward. And so, fast forward in 2023, Crunch Drawt is County Education Association, that's my local, which I'm a part of. I did something to our, to our bylaws and to the policy where we could establish our own caucus. And so, I was like, here we go. And so, I was able to like, okay, this is one that is necessary and that's needed because of so many different issues that our educators are going through our students, our black and brown students are going through. And we wanted to make sure that we have a caucus that would support these black and our black and brown students and educators alike. And so, that's what we did. I thought I went out and as you said, I wanted Howard, as an Howard graduate, it has been in stillness, how to advocate and how to get things moving. Exactly. And so, I went out and I, you know, got petition. I got our members to sign over 100 members to sign saying that this was what we needed to see. And so, fast forward, it is, it is actually brand new because we're in like our second year. So, we finally got our official push. We had to go against the grain to be able to get it. And we finally got it, last year, the end of like last October. However, we were doing things before we officially got our title when we were in Pennsylvania.
in the last year, there was a stripe. We actually came together and collected some toiletry for the homeless. So those are some of the things that we wanted to do to be impactful to our community as well. - Okay, absolutely. Okay, so this is new. I was like, "Yes, has this been around a long time? I come home just to do this." - No, it was about a weird one. - Okay. - It was a long time. - Very good, very good. And so I'm assuming your role in the caucus is there any like elected. - Awesome. - Yes, okay. - Yes, currently I am the chair of the Chair and the Founder right now. And so we're putting things in place so that the membership, what we did was the membership for this year and was free, right? So we didn't charge anything. We just wanted individuals, the members, who are part of it to understand that they're gonna have to do some fundraiser and they're gonna have to give back, right, because we wanna be able to. We actually gave out a scholarship, the last May, to, in the tools of $500, to the Prince George's County Education Foundation. So we wanna be, you know, purposeful and we wanna be able to make sure that we are having an impact on our students and our educators. - Okay, very good, very good. All right, so now I understand how the Black Hock is started and everything and thank you for sharing that, 'cause again, that was something that I did not know existed in this county. So one of the things that you have been sound in the alarm about is the teacher's unions contracts. And your emails have been very eye-opening, if you will, so very informative, but also very detailed. And so we wanna just kinda keep it very simple. Here for our listeners, but what's the primary issue that you have been sound in the alarm about with the recent ratification of the teacher's union contract in Prince George's County Public Schools? - Yes, so we have currently now about 9,000 members and we have members that are master educators, expert educators, veteran educators, and they are at the top of the Sabbath scale. And so what we have been saying is that we want a fear contract for all 9,000 members. So currently what has happened, what has been negotiated is that the newer teachers that are coming in, they get a 24% raise in three years while the senior teachers, the teachers, the veteran teachers, they only negotiated a 9%. Well, it's not even increased because we're getting 4% less than what we have been getting over the last three years. And so that's problematic. Right? - Wow. - And so I've been sharing with our members. We also had a contract that we did not see the details of the contract, right? And so on sale last week when they wanted us to vote on the contract. So a lot of information in the contract does not support the educator does not protect the educator. And I wanted educators to know that it's not only just the money, it is also the fact that we have not acquired any more additional planning time. We've been talking and the teachers have such a overload on things that need to be done. We have asked for that we did not get that. We're not safer in the school. If the teachers are attacked, we don't have a salt leaf, but the principal do. So there's a lot of different components of the contract that is not beneficial to our educators. - Okay, I get it, I get it. And that's unfortunate in terms of our veteran teachers because we're always hearing about teacher shortage, not just nationwide, but specifically here in Prince George's County. And if the veteran teachers are feeling like, well, actually I'm not getting even a 9%, I'm really getting a 4% increase yet you're bringing in the newer teachers with a much higher increase. What is their, why is there a reason for me to stick around? And then that adds to the shortage. So we see a lot of retirement of our veteran teachers who are the really good educators. And I can kind of relate to this because I don't know if you knew Stephanie that my sister was the educator in Houston, well, actually the humble independent school district. And I used to always say to her, you should always stay in the classroom. I went to visit her in the classroom and she just had total command of her classroom. But her salary, I guess she also got to, you know, the high end of the salary. And the only thing you can do is go into administration. You can't keep a teacher in the classroom and pay them a higher salary, which I think they should do simply because they are the veteran teachers. They have experience and exposure. And not everybody is meant to be an administrator or a boss. They need to be able to take that salary higher. You know, in the United States, we can play millions and millions of dollars for somebody to run, you know, run with the ball, bounce a ball, do this and that. But yet we're paying 20, 30, 40, 50,000 dollars to educate the next generation of leaders in our country. And we don't understand why things have fallen apart the way they are. People are not educated. People are not being critical thinkers. Yes. That we know in the monastery world, you train your children to be critical thinkers not to take a test, but to be able to problem solve. And that's what we need in this country problem solve. So it's, I'm saddened to hear that our veteran and season educators are not able to get the same amount of rate increase and raises that some of the younger, it's so forth. And now it's, I have a better understanding of why so many are leaving the profession. In addition to the effect of what you talked about, how the discipline is an issue. And if someone is a tag, if it's a principle, they can get leave. But if it's an educator, they don't have that same protection, that same ability to have a benefit to get leave and so forth. And so I'm really praying for our educators, praying that we do the right thing for and buy them. And that's really a job of the Prince George County School Board. And we'll talk about that a little later. But thanks. Thanks for outlining those three things that those issues are. So it's salary specifically for our veteran teachers. It's benefits for if a teacher is assaulted. And it's more common telling the listeners now. It's more common than you think it is. That this happens. You may see a few videos go viral here, there, or whatever. But it's absolutely more common. I don't know where these, what these parents are doing or telling their students, their children about respecting authority and respecting adults, but it's got to change. And until it changes, we need to be on the side of our educators and our teachers and supporting them that this nonsense has to stop. And if it doesn't stop, you've got to give them benefits to help deal with the altercations and the issues. And it should be non-negotiable. Hi, great. Yep, yep, yep. So thank you for outlining that. But it's easy to say what the problem is. And this is one thing that I always try to do. It's easy to say what the problem is and complain about it. But my next question to you is, what should educators be doing to actually resolve this issue? Now, I know you are spotlighting and highlighting these issues with respect to the contract. And tell me before we talk about the resolutions, how long is the contract good for? So the contract is good for three years. So it's going to run from 20 2025 to 2028. So it is good for three years. OK. OK. So because the contract is good for three years, the fact that it's been ratified and it's in place, what can an educator do now to resolve this issue? Can they go back and say, hey, we want a new contract ratified can they tell the leadership can we
want a new contract ratified. Do they have to wait for the three years? Obviously you want to be proactive and get ready to make your demands to the school board and administration, you know, in year maybe 2027, you know, maybe even starting as early as next year. But what can the educators do now? Because I see, like I said, I see your emails, I see you educating them, talking about the different step increases and what have you. But what can we do now so that they're not caught unaware and bowed on a contract that they really don't know the terms and how did that happen? Anyway, how do you bow on something that has not been shared with you, the details of which is not been shared with you? You've already started the school system and you just saw the contract last week. The specific details. What again, transparency, I don't even understand how that works. Yes, yes, yes. And that's where I am too, right? Because I've been asking for the contract. I've been asking for the language I've been asking back and forth. When I say I've been asking, I've been sending email to the Prince George's County Education Association leadership, the president on a Christie, the executive director, Yane, Eastern, just saying we need to see the language, right? And so that never happened. Nothing that I asked for, we were given. We were given at one point in time, closer to the end, links that add and went to links. And so it was never anything. I actually got an email from the executive director, Yane, Eastern saying that, oh, they're going to send out a cleaner version. So in actuality, I've coined it. It's in my email that we've actually gotten a dirty version, right? As educators, we've gotten a dirty version. So we never received a contract that was sustained that kind of broke down and gave the comparison. So what I got, I tried to go through it and kind of broke it down and was like, okay, we're not getting anything for this. We're not getting. So it was not a game. It was not a game in this particular contract. And so you ask a question about how did individual vote for the company because they had like someone would come and say vote for the contract. And so we you shared earlier that we are not using our critical thinking skill anymore. We're not questioning anything anymore, right? We, and so it's trickle down, right? Indifference will just be led like, oh, do this and no one is asking. And if you do, ask the question, you kind of get, you know, kind of white watch, you kind of get, you know, like pushback, like, oh, if you want to be silence, you want to be suppressed. And so that's really where we are right now. Individuals don't necessarily want to align themselves with, as you said, transparency, as you said, you know, being fort right with the information. But as you said, it's in grain. We were taught from our legacy being a how would I that we whenever we see things that are not, that are not right, we have to speak up against it. Or then we become a part of this if we don't speak up. And so I will continue to speak. I will continue to share the information. Now in terms of there's a part in the contract in the year 2027, 2026 that they in the contract, it is stated that if there's more money, they can come back to to PGCPS and ask for more. I'm hoping and I'm going to share that and make sure that our members are aware of that so that they can demand you stated this, you need to go back to the contract, go back to the negotiation table, especially for the people at the top. And we're not saying that the newer teachers that are coming in, they should not get 24% but what we're saying that everybody should get 24%. Right. You know, nowhere in history, I went back and I looked where I've seen anything such as this, you don't give your entry individual entry level individuals more than you given your senior, you know, it just, I'm just dumbfounded. Right. But here we are now. And so you asked, I love the question that you asked, I don't admire the problem. We want solution, right? And so those are some of the solutions that we gave that they cut off the bottom, the bottom two steps and we asked them to put it at the top. So now you would have, we'll move from 21 to 20, 22 and 23. And so we have given them solution. And so we're hoping that that language where it says that, you know, if more, we can go back to them with that language and say, this is what we're demanding. This is what we're asking for now. Okay. Well, we know that's going to be issue because one state, the state is facing some structural deficits, looking for ways to cut. And then I must be assuming with the blueprint, Maryland's blueprint for education, and blueprint for success, a lot of the operational cost is now being pushed to the county. So it thinks that we need to support our teachers as being pushed to the county. Now, other jurisdictions, other counties in Maryland may not have this problem, but we know for sure in Prince George's county that we've had some budget issues as well. And it will continue over the next couple of cycles because we are losing some major financial resources. For example, if the commanders move out in 2028, which there's nothing that says that they are going to stay in Prince George's county, we're going to lose the funding that we get from the commanders and their stadium. We're losing some big employers in the area for our youth. People talk about the closing of six flags and how it influences a lot of our youth, but that amusement park also paid substantial commercial dollars into the county's budget and county treasury, I should say, in revenues. So any event that's going to be interesting, but I think I already know what the administration and what the school board is going to say is we don't have any more money. There's no more money and we're not going to go back and negotiate. But I do think maybe a reasonable solution and I'm just going to offer this to you and it just came to me off the top of my head is if you can't do 24% across the board, maybe you do a smaller percentage for everyone, but it's still across the board. Maybe it's 15%, maybe it's 10%. I don't know what that magic number is, but do make it equitable across the board because I do see that once our season and our veteran teachers get a hold and truly understand what you've been advocating for, that they're going to be like, well, why should I stay in Prince George's class in the schools? And again, you lose that brain drain that you will get from not having your educators, your veteran teachers, and they become mentors to the younger teachers as well. So they become a resource to the younger teachers. I kind of laugh, we think about it, we laugh at Abbott Elementary, the television show, but you see the mentorship that goes on between the two teachers. I'm forgetting the names of the characters, the teachers right now, Ms. Janine and Ms. Howard, I think that's her lesson, but she goes to Ms. Howard all the time to ask for information and you know, you know, that takes place. It has to take place at schools. And if we, if our veteran teachers wake up to the fact that, hey, I'm not getting what I deserve here. In fact, I'm actually getting less because it's, contracts says 9%, but actually when you do the math, I have, you have done it's a 4% raise. And so I really would hate to see that the educators wake up to that and I'm assuming the Prince George's County School System and the school board doesn't want them to wake up to that. But again, that's what we do on this podcast. That's what I do with my emails. That's what you're doing to hear emails is to say, hey, this is what this really looks like. I've read the contract. I've done the math. This is what this really means. This is really how it impacts us. And you need to speak up and speak up for yourself and so forth. But anyway, so my little resolution is perhaps the better solution is, again, make it equal across the board, but it has to be a little bit less than 18% I mean, 18% you know, 18 right right because the last three years, the last and that's the reason why I was looking at the last three years, our contract, we had a 13% base on the base salary. We were able to get 30% and so just in my mind, I'm like, who negates, who negotiate something little.
last. And what the educators has gotten you know, I mean, that to me is just like, Oh, wait a minute now, you know, right. So that was was problematic for me. And then I was like, wait a minute. And then as you said, you use the word equity, however, and fairness, right? That was one of the tenants that are educators would be getting high, you know, fear highly compensated because you know, we are expert educators. That was not the case. So that to me was very alarming. And money was being found for other things. And we're going to talk about that. Right. Right. Because I was like, Oh, they were able to find money over it. You know, almost $3 million for this quagmire. So, you know, let me out here. Right. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. So I think I can't remember the number, but I know at least over the last month or so, I've been getting at least one, maybe two emails a week from you about this issue. So my question to you is though, how are your fellow educators responding to this issue? Are they being awakened? Do they understand what kind of feedback are you getting back from your fellow educators? So they are waking up, right? They're on their understanding. And I think because many of our educators, right, they elect building reps from their buildings. So this is how the process is. So they elect the building reps from their building. Even though we still have about 70% of the school that do not have building rep. But the 30% that you said 70% about about 70% of the schools. There are 70% of the schools. The teachers in the schools are not being represented in a left and dark about. They're not being represented. They're not at all. And so that has always been one of my push my members so that they're aware. And I will kind of give you a little bit of numbers in just an minute. But so that's a big issue, right? And so they elect their building reps, the ones who have building reps in their in the building. And they come, we meet like once a month and they are to bring the issues that are impacting the educators within the school. And so when I talk to the educators, you know, face to face, they're like, oh my, we didn't realize that this is what this is what is going on because we elect these members so that they can advocate on behalf of us. And clearly that's not what's happening, especially the people who are at step 21. They are like, wait a minute, this is unfair. You know, we want to go back to the table. And so there were some pushback in that. However, as I said, the language and it's a lot of, it's a lot of people. Right? And so you have to really do do diligence to say, okay, you know what? I am going to save through this to be able to be able to know that I am aware as to what is being offered for me. And so that is the problem that we're having. Many of the educators are not reading. For one reason or the other, they're inundated with so many different tasks as being a classroom teacher, the case load, grading, learning, synergy, all of these things. And so many of our educators are not necessarily diving through and doing a deep dive to see what is being advocating on their behalf. I would employ them and I say to them, you know, come to a meeting, right? Come to a meeting. We meet like every fourth Monday. Come and see who's advocating on your behalf, right? And ask the question as to what is going on. I don't believe this is not going to hit them yet. They don't realize when this contract is ratified how it gave them nothing, how we lost. We did not gain nothing. I think right now as the numbers came back, which is a little strange, but you know, the numbers came back in terms of the yes, it's a 51% with 4,600, 600, for members voting for it. That's what it is set on the information that we receive. And then only 200 six educators rejected it a little bit off, you know, but that's another story for another day. But now that they see it, I think they're really just kind of like what we're dealing with now, right? Many individuals decide they cast it a vote and they see what is happening in the country, right? And so it is kind of similar, mirror that, you know, that kind of trajectory. And so, as you said, we're going to continue to advocate. We're going to continue. I know you said that that money, but we're going to say, you know, money was found in, you know, I don't know where it was found, but money was found to be able to pay to superintendant simultaneously. And so, right, right. I'm going to share that information with them. And we also want, that's why I wanted to do this because we also want our community or residents to be able to know what's going on because their tax dollars are also, you know, meddling with this. So it's not just a teacher thing. It's exactly, it's all of us, you know, issue that business in back then. Exactly. And yeah, I was just going to say that even though we don't, we no longer have children that matriculate through the press stores just county school system, our tax dollars go towards paying for the operating cost at school system every seven, 70 cents on the dollar and property taxes basically not just property taxes, but all of the budget really is 70% of the goes to the Prince George County public schools, another, you know, 10, 15% goes to the public safety for police and fire. And then, you know, we have a little bit left to try to run the rest of the county. So let's segue because you mentioned, yeah, you mentioned the elephant in the room, which is PGC, yeah, out of the blue came out and issued over the summer, there's no confidence boat in former superintendent, Miller house. And, you know, it just splashed all over news and was like, okay, where did this come from? What, is this man? Because if you look at it, two of the issues that he was kind of hired to resolve and deal with was graduation rates, which went up to 80, yeah, which went up to 80% including our English language learners went up 15 more percent in terms of graduation rates and then this whole school bus issues. And he had, you know, resolved that not so much resolved it. I know there's still a shortage of bus drivers, but in terms of picking the students up timely and getting them to school on time, the tracker that they're now talking about was actually instituted under former superintendent house. So it's like, okay, well, the man is doing good and it's only a second year and he's already turning some things around and addressing what you have. Where did this boat and no confidence come from? So tell our listeners confidence in what exactly was it that they had no confidence. He got GGA had no confidence in that's number one. And then we can kind of go into this whole resignation slash firing coming to agreement of firing and then all of a sudden finding over half a million dollars to pay him plus another half a million dollars to pay interim superintendent to come in and lead the school system. But explain to me what confidence did PGCEA lack in former superintendent, Millward House? So lots of queries, right? And very, you know, very important queries. And so because we're asking the same question, we were blindsided. We knew that former superintendent house came in. As you said, he was hired to do particular things. And as the advocate that I am, I normally like to go to the horses mouth. So I've gone to the bus drivers and I've asked them, you know, what are your thoughts on this? How do you see these new changes? How are they? How have they been working? And they were like, it has been working fine, right? And so as you said, he did not finish his second year when this came up. And so the problem that they taught that they were saying that was connected to him, he inherited these things. And so it was not unique to him. So that is a really good question that we're trying to find to answer, vote on no confidence in what specific things that you were, you know, that they were talking about. And so that took, you know, I was, you know, very, when I was there and I heard that, I was like, where's this coming from? It's a little, it's premature because he did not, he was not given the adequate time to be able to do all of these things that, you know, you, we know the county's going, is having problems when we talk about vacancy. That's not unique to him, right?
right, there's a teacher shortage around the country. And so as I said before, we were dumbfounded when that came up and that vote of no confidence and the way how it was orchestrated and the way how it was presented even to the media was missing, was it misinformation and it was inaccurate. And so it was stated in the media that was, go ahead. - No, so it helped me to understand. So did they call a meeting of all the PGCEA members or was this just the board and the board made a decision and then kind of, yeah, how did that actually happen? - PGCEA called a, it was an emergency virtual meeting. When I received the information, I thought that it was going to be about the contract because we were in the deadbeat of the contract. So I was like, okay, we're going in, we're gonna be discussing these numbers that PGCE came back with because just, I just wanted to put this in there. When PGCEA initially started a contract, they were asking for 27%. So that was the original. And so-- - And was that across the board? - That was across the board. That was across the board. So it was 27% across the board for everybody. That was the original request for everybody. And then PGCEA came back, PGCEPS came back. And so I just wanted to make just to clarify that PGCEA, PGCEPS came back and they came back with about, I wanna say, seven percent. It was two, I think 2.5, two percent and then two. So it was a total of seven percent that they asked when we came with 27% they came with seven percent. And so, right, so you can see how we came from 27% to 9%. Just still-- - Right. - You know, but-- - I love it, but the background to me. - Right, we're still laughing to me. So I just wanted to put that in here. So we thought that that's what it was going to be about. And so that emergency meeting was for the building reps. So as was noted that the building reps are elected by the members to come and represent them. However, it was not all of the building reps because as I said, it was virtual. Many people didn't get it. And so that's when that came out. And we were kind of shocked like where's this coming from? It was also mentioned that there was a survey that was given. And I know many of the individuals educators that I spoke to said that they did not do the survey. And so the survey was presented as just to get the temperature of where we are. And so apparently that survey was used to create the vote and no confidence that we have never seen. I've never seen a result of that particular survey. And so when we were on the meeting, we heard that many of the educators were suppressed, me included, to be able to, you know, kind of like we shared our dissatisfaction and not being an agreement to it. And it was kind of like very much orchestrated, right? There were information that was given. So we were going to look stupid if we didn't go through it. There was apparently the media was already contacted prior to the vote even happening. And so yeah, it just seems to me like we were being used as pawns. We were, there were some abuse of power in regards to this. And so when the information came out, it says 80% of the members voted for it, which was not accurate. That was, that was alive, I could say that. It was not accurate. It was less than 60 members voted for that. Wow. Wow. So yeah, and so yeah. Yeah. And I also saw that. I think I saw in the news that the principles association did not, you know, it blindsided them as well. They were not, you know, they didn't obviously have a vote of no confidence. And so it was, it was blindsided. So the, the, have we ever found out why they wanted superintendent house out of that position? Right. So, so the word on the street, he was not, he was going to stand on principle. He was going to stand on integrity, right? And so there's a lot of things. As I said before, you and I talked, we have had this, we're experienced where we have gone to the board meetings and we have testified. I have never seen any discourse between the board and or the superintendent when I am attending. So I am still trying to figure out what, what was the reason for that. At one point in time, we were hearing that it would have bought us, it potentially bought us more, more money in terms of the negotiation. That's not true. We see where we are right now. And so I am still kind of diving through trying to, you know, do some investigative, you know, sessions and duty on that because I still don't know. But we have heard that there, he was going to stand on principle and stand on business. There are things that, you know, they wanted to happen and he was not going to move forward with some of those things. And they meaning the school board? The school board, meaning the school board. I mean, we can see politics in play, right? We can see some political action in play as well. And so that's kind of like what we are hearing as we are doing some investigation. That's what we're called to do. And so we're doing some investigation to see, you know, what was the exact tenets as to why he was ousted. OK. OK. And I have seen, and I'm going to, we're going to put in our episode show notes. I saw an article on Maryland Matters, which talks about how politics undermines Prince George's County public schools that was done back in June. I think this is right after the vote of no confidence. And the supposed resignation, settlement agreement to leave. So he was paid. Bill House was paid. What? Tell me the amount of money he was paid to leave. So if you might interject the same, I think his name, I read the same article and I think it was done by Timothy Myers. I think that was-- Yes. And he also gave a video speech that was never aired. Right. That's horrible. And I think that's all that-- I think that's all that you posted that video, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. So no one who had any questions about it, and we're not saying, as we said, we're not saying, you know, there's anything in terms of the new in terms of pretending Dr. Joseph. We're not saying that there's anything bad at this junction. What we're saying is that the process was not followed accurately. And so to segue, if we're talking about being fiscally responsible, let's go back to the money. Right. We were talking about money. And so we have a superintendents, a former superintendent, who is not no longer with us. But we, Prince George County Public School and taxpayers have to pay him. And so we're looking at when we look at the package and the buyout in tunes of over $2 million. OK. Oh my goodness. And so-- And then when we think about the new intern superintendent with his package and everything else, over half a million dollars. So we're talking about over $2.5 million, where it could have gone to pay the teachers at the top-- Exactly. --30 teachers at the top teachers at the bottom, about 50. So we're just looking at-- where did those funds come from? Right. Very, very-- And so those are some of the things that we are going to really be asking, put in the forefront, and also to get our community residents involved in it, because they are very much impacted. And so those are some of the things that we decide that we are going to be doing at this time. Because as we said, many of our educators are leaving. I know some that left already because they're at step 20. They understand that we are not going past step 21. So what they did was they took their expertise and they went to other Jewish diction that they're getting much more money for. And they're able to move out of them, as you said, on that career ladder as well. We know that Prince George's County, we have invested in-- we have really great educators here-- that are really about educating our children. And with their expertise, they are in demand. And so we want that to be out there to the board, because I will be definitely testifying and talking to them. I didn't get the opportunity to share my concerns back in June. And so-- And it's very balanced, right? And so we want to make sure that the money-- you could find that money-- we want to find that money for our wonderful illustrious educators. Thanks.
that are educating our children in the classroom day in and day out. Exactly, exactly. Yep. So yeah, I'm always about being a good steward over the tax dollars that the residents and homeowners and other heartworking people pay into our system and make sure that we're using it wisely. And if there was no real reason other than politics to push former superintendent house out and yet we can find, you know, a million and a half and almost two million for the new superintendent. Why can't we find a money to when we get ready to ratify the contract for our educators across the board, especially our season and our veteran educators, because like you said, and we talked about early, get that brain drain and they go take it somewhere else. And so that is really such a travesty. And I think one of the things that we need to do is accounting and the residents needs to be up in arms about is accountability for the money that we're spending like this. You know, we, this is what our fourth superintendent and what like six less than six years or something like that. And we're paying them simultaneously. And so it's a pattern. And so we're talking about when we're talking about our children, right, consistent your children need consistency. So if we keep every every year, we're having a different superintendent to come in. You know, we have shortfalls and we have gaps and we're seeing this now within the scores for our children as well. Yeah. Yep. Okay. I understand it. So again, I'm always about solutions. It's easy to break up the problems and you know, everybody can see the problems that complain. But who's going to do the heart work to get it done? So my last two questions actually relate to one, what compareants do and even if you're not if you're children are no longer in PGCPS like our children aren't there now adults, young adults, what compareants and as it is due to support our educators here in PGCPS. And then two, what can both the parents and the educators do to be more involved in the school system administration? You know, like I said, especially if you don't have a child matriculating through the system, what can we do to say, hey, listen, this you're wasting our tax dollars here, wasting our tax dollars here. We have teachers leaving, we have veteran teachers leaving because they are not being valued at the level that they know that they're worth because they have this expertise because, you know, they are seasoned. They have 20 plus years. They have whatever in the school system. What can we do to support you and then what can we do to be more involved in the administration? I don't want to just have a podcast and we complain about what's already been talked about in June. Let's try to find a solution. So help me there. Thank you so much for asking that question. All right, I appreciate you and that question. There's a board meeting as we, there's a board meeting. I want to say they meet on Thursday. I need to give you the exact, they meet on Thursday, but I want to tell you exactly when. So I need to find that some of it. I'll tell you exactly when the board, Prince George County, public school board meets and that's really where you need to go. And even prior to that call and sign up to speak as members. I'm a resident, even though I'm an educator, I'm a resident, I'm a taxpayer of this county. And I love this county. You can lend your voice, right? And you can call your board members and let them know this is unacceptable. We want our educators, the season educators to get more than the 9%. Right? So those are practical things that you are able to do. You vote. Right. You vote. You vote them in and you can vote them out. And so those are some of the things. That's the power that we have as residents within this county. And get more informed. I do have, you know, at the teachers lounge, I do make do zoom meetings and just send information out as well. So that our members, not only are educators, but also our community members can be aware of what is going on and how they are able to give lend their voice. But yes, calling your school board members to let them know this is unacceptable. My property tax is being, you know, I'm using, I'm giving property taxes being it is high. I wanted to be able to use for making sure that our educators are able to get the funds so that they can educate the children, you know, within this wonderful district. So that is something that comes to mind. Another thing you asked about all the barriers to teachers. Hold that. Put a pin in that because I did look up the upcoming board meeting. So the, the, the first, you know, after the school system has started back up. We're now back in school. There's a lot of quote unquote work sessions and board meetings. But the first open business board meeting is not until Thursday, right? It's on Thursdays. It's Thursday, September the 25th from five, excuse me, from 7 to 9 p.m. So you can go there to sign up to speak on those issues. However, there are some prior to the end of the month. There are some additional meetings that may be worth your while, for example. Tomorrow, there is a board of education audit committee meeting. It's a very good. I like audit. And so there's, there's a audit committee meeting tomorrow starting at 6 o'clock. There is a parent community advisory council meeting. And Wednesday from 7 to 8. So all this week, there are some really good meetings. This next one is really good because it deals with capital improvement plans. So if you want to do school, school renovated on Thursday, September 4th from 6 to 8 is a capital improvement public hearing. And so that, that tells me that that is a hearing that's open to the public. And you can come in and say, our school needs this, that the other, our school building needs to be torn down and we need to have it part of that P3 and get a new school. You know, we need new air condition, we need whatever. So that's what the CIP budget is for. And that's so that hearing is the first hearing capital improvement plan public hearing is this coming Thursday the 4th. And there's quite a bit of other meetings, a disabilities issue advisory board meeting. There's an academic achievement committee meeting on the 15th of September. So I encourage everyone that's listening to just go to the website pgcps.org. You can go to the link board of education or actually just this board. If you select board, there's a calendar and you can go through that calendar to try to sign up and register to attend those meetings and bring those concerns that Miss Powell is talking about being good steward over the tax dollars that we're paying. And that's just property tax because even if you live in an apartment, you're paying income tax to the state in the county. And you're in those funds are going into that general treasury that the county council is ultimately giving the money over to the school board to spend to help educate and run our school system. So there's quite a bit of meetings coming up this month just about. This week is starting tomorrow. There's a meeting every day except for Friday evening that you can tune into you can register to speak. But the actual board meeting that's business meeting that's open to the public is September the 30th starting at again. Is it the 30th or the 25th? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the 25th, the 25th starting at 7pm. They do have a 530 to 7 business meeting but that's the closed session. So what closed session and closed sessions are not bad in the sense that sometimes they do deal with personnel issues which obviously has to remain private. I don't like closed sessions a lot of times because that's when
And when we saw the whole thing about super-intended house, the news was there. And so they were recording the meetings and then they went to the closed session. And so news reporters were chasing after the chair. And he's like, well, it's a personnel matter. So we can't disclose it in the closed door. And all of a sudden, we hear that he's been like, go, he agreed to resign, what had you been? And I understand, again, personnel matters should be private, especially when they involve whatever action that it's going on. But when you're potentially spending one point something million, tax dollars to pay to buy them out, right? To finish his contract, I'll pay him out, just that you owe an explanation to your taxpayers as to why you're doing this, just to say that PGCEA came out with a boat of no confidence. And we still don't know what that confidence was. I think I saw. I did see something about, I did see something about salaries, but I had not heard prior to that boat of no confidence that the contract that there was a real big issue. Like you said, you went into the meeting as an educator in your build being, your building, you know, we were gonna talk about the contract and then all of a sudden they were talking about voting no confidence. This superintendent without going through the details of that. So something is a miss. And I'm not gonna say we're gonna be able to get to the heart of the matter on September 25th at the school board meeting, but what parents and what residents need to know is is that we need to let our voices be heard. Yes. That this kind of wasteful spending of our money is one unacceptable and is the reason why you see the attrition of our teachers, our season teachers going away. You can find money to pay two superintendent simultaneously and finish up paying contracts with the others that have left in the last four to six years as well. You certainly can buy money to pay across the board increases for all of our teachers and use the money wisely. And I think that's the message that we need to leave our listeners to today, Ms. Powell. I think we leave them to say, hey, write your school board representatives, write the county administration, whether it's the county executive as well as the county council to say, hey, this is unacceptable, especially since we know and it shows that the graduation rates were going up under former superintendent house that was one of the issues that they complained about the prior transportation and the transportation issue. He had the tracker so they're trying to say that the tracker system came as a result of our current interim superintendent, which we know that's not true because the contract for that. I saw the contract for that tracker system was well before. He came on so we know that house was dealing with that transportation issue even with the fact that we don't have still don't have enough school bus drivers. But those were two issues. And we have four, if I just interject, we have four I think really strong unions and out of the four unions. You never heard of it. You already took one, right? You already took one. Other three are like, what is going on? So it wasn't like a theorem balance, right? And so that to me, it's like, you know, so yeah, but I like what you said, that is a good way to end to say parents and community members, you can come into the schools, you can come and you can volunteer, just make sure that you get your fingerprinting. You can, you know, and that's how you can support us as well. You know, to be able to continue to have our voice being heard and to support us as well. Right, right, right. Well, Miss Powell, this has been very enlightening. I'm going to keep following all of your detailed emails. I love how you do the math, or you make it very simple, actually. It's a lot of material to digest, but I'm hoping that the teachers that you are responding to and communicating with are taking the time to read it because you do do the heavy lifting in terms of doing the analysis and the critical thinking behind the numbers versus, you know, the different steps. And if you have a master's degree versus just having a bachelor's degree, you go into all of that great detail. And again, that's that Howard H.U. education. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Because I learned from you. I learned from you. I want to say that. I know we kind of work together, you know, on different things when our children was in school. But I really want to say, I applaud the way how you have given transparency for years since I've been in this county. And so I appreciate you. And I've learned very much a lot from you and keep doing what, you know, what you're doing. We need individuals like you within our political sphere so that we can continue to get transparency. We can continue to get integrity and get what is necessary for our students for our community individuals as well. So thank you. All right. Well, that's good. That's good. So parents and listeners, please share this episode with people you know, particularly those who have children in prison or just county public schools. But even if they don't and they are confused about, you know, this whole thing that happened in June and where it goes, it doesn't have to stop and end there. The conversation needs to be taking place of how to use our money and be good stewards over the tax dollars that we're having. And so you need to come to the school board meetings, write email, call, whatever you have to do, your school board representatives so that they can be accountable for the tax dollars that we're spending and really wasting that could have gone to the educators, that could have gone to helping to bridge that gap between a 24% increase versus only a 49, which really is only 4% increase. And as a result, we're losing our season, our good veteran teachers. So we want you to share this information. We want you to take action. We just don't want you again to listen and view the problem and say, let somebody else handle it and roll up your sleeves and and and at least make a call doesn't take much time to register your concern about that. If you can't make it, send out an email. If you can sit on social media and make comments, you can make comments to your representatives as well. So I want to thank our guest today, Ms. Stephanie Powell, educator at Millwood Elementary School, former PTSA Warrior at John Hanson, but more importantly, the Howard Howard Grant that knows how to do that. You know, that really knows how to dig deep and get the detail information. Stephanie, somebody wanted to Ms. Powell, if someone wanted to get the email that you're sending out, I had not I had not forwarded on my list, sir, because it was so detailed. So I felt like I felt like people would be overwhelmed with the time. I tried to, you know, make again, I always try to take the lily stuff and the other stuff and make it so simple that people really understand. But if people wanted to get more information, and particularly our educators, honestly, because I don't know what your reaches outside of your Millwood community and where you live here in Clinton, but what your reaches, what's the best way for them to email you to say, hey, I'd like to know more information. Certainly. And so do you I could give them, we have two emails, I could give them the S-Powell. I'm one if you want me to share that with them. So that is S-Powell. So S as in Sam, P as in Peter, or as in Onward, W as in Water, he as in Echo, L as in Love, L as in Love, L as in Love,
[email protected]. So S-Powell, P-O-W-E-L-L, L three Ls,
[email protected]. If you have want to find out a little bit more from my educators perspective, to reach out to Miss Powell and she can kind of tell you, give you the whole background about the contract and what the contract looks like. And then she actually does the mathematical analysis on all of the different steps if you first come in with just a bachelor's degree versus having a master's and so forth in the number of years she goes through all of that detail.
So please contact Miss Powell if you want more information. We will put on the show notes for this episode the Prince George County Council, not County Council of Science School Board's website with the board calendar information so that you can hear that and then I'll also drop the I think the video that Miss Powell was talking about from Mr. Myers as well as a link to his article. And Maryland matters about the politics playing in press George County schools and really setting us back, you know, we keep having to start again as Miss Powell mentioned with every time there's a new superintendent that comes in with their directions. County you start the process all over again and we just need to stop that that the revolving door and get some stability for our students as well as for our teachers. So Miss Powell thank you so much for your time. Well, it was my pleasure. So much for joining us and we thank all the listeners for listening to all politics is local with me your host hammer Davis Brown please do share. This podcast with all neighbors friends let them know to get involved in that we need to move beyond the ballot box to action and holding our elected officials accountable and being transparent about what's going on in our local federal local state and federal elections. So thank you for joining us and we will see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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