Nashville's Online Source for Daily News
Search Site
New program will allow Metro workers to volunteer in schools
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 10:45pm
Staff reports
A new program aimed to give Metro workers time to volunteer in schools will kick-off Wednesday morning when Mayor Karl Dean rolls up his sleeves to help East Nashville students in art class.
One primary goal of the initiative is to generate hands-on community support for the schools by making it easier for city employees to volunteer in Metro Nashville Public Schools during the workweek.
The mayor will release more details on the new program when he signs an executive order Wednesday at Warner Elementary to create the program.
Representatives of the PENCIL Foundation will help Metro manage the program.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Technorati
Filed under: City News
3 Comments on this post:
Nashville CityPaper Classifieds
Mailing list sign-up
Real Estate: Home Video Tours
Searching for a new home? The City Paper is excited to partner with HouseLens.com, offering buyers easy-to-view video tours of Middle Tennessee's hottest homes.
539 Margrave Dr, Clarksville
Price: $0
Bedrooms/Bathrooms: 0/0
32 Borck Ln, Lebanon
Price: $199,900
Bedrooms/Bathrooms: 3/2
View More Homes
539 Margrave Dr, Clarksville
Price: $0
Bedrooms/Bathrooms: 0/0
32 Borck Ln, Lebanon
Price: $199,900
Bedrooms/Bathrooms: 3/2
View More Homes
This has to raise an eyebrow...
If schools are open during the average dayshift of work hours... how are the city employees gonna get the time off to volunteer?
Do the city employees use their vacation days? Do they use their sick days? Are they getting their regular pay, on regular work days to perform these so called volunteer programs?
Are the schools open on weekends when the city employees are usually off? Naa...
Are the city employees usually off during the week when school is in session? Hummm...
Which schools will be more privileged to get the big shots… well… really Mr. Dean, you are overpaid to be art volunteer at every school…
Well... at any rate... if these city employees are getting paid to perform these programs on city/metro time... well... that's not really volunteering then is it? And this certainly would seem like a waste of paid state labor hours...
Hey PENCIL… I hope you’ve paid your fees for unlimited background checks? I hope this doesn’t ruin the kick off tomorrow… I know you’ve thought about all these things. Right?
Good thing these blogging boards and surveys are around to aid the government in being updated with second opinions… It’s all about community involvement… right? Anyone else have any ideas that may need to be shared?
Oh... one last thing... why the emphasis on city/metro employees? Aren't the non-city, non-metro employees in the area qualified to volunteer for something? Or is this executive order, a publicity stunt to gather common support for all those fine city/metro employees?
Hummm... I guess it's a wait and see thing...
It's official...
As reported By Joey Garrison:
City employees can trade work hours for time in schools
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 11:56am
"Dean outlined the specifics of a plan that gives government employees the opportunity to receive up to two hours of paid administrative leave in exchange for one hour of volunteer work."
What a nice way to double a salary without doing any work!
Two for one... another incentive to avoid work. A government worker can skip their own job and go play school. I would imagine that there will be a shortage of government workers soon. All the government workers will be getting double pay to avoid their own jobs. What a deal!
This ain’t volunteering in no sense when ya getting’ paid!
Even if there was a limit on how many hours can be volunteered it would implicate that the city/metro, government employees hold jobs that are inexcusably worthless on a part time basis.
Harsh words… certainly somewhat exaggerative… but, let me ask…
What employer would pay an employee twice the rate to go work elsewhere? What kind of value does this place on the employee’s full time governmental job?
Sounds, like there is an overabundance of employees in government. How many extra employees are on hand to cover the absent employee doing work at another job?
Not only do we have classroom size reduced upwards of forty percent over the past several decades… we have to send government employees from other departments to aid the Teachers in a failed educational system!
What’s next? Two Teachers in every 15-20 student classroom? I believe the AFT & the NEA has failed the Teachers of this state! For those who don’t know… Union Teachers contribute into a fund to promote propaganda and lobby that Teachers are overworked and underpaid… a myth exposed in several articles.
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige says… “The National Education Association (NEA) was founded in 1857 to improve education at the local level. Within just a few years, it shifted its focus to teacher pay. Today, with approximately 3.2 million members, the NEA is one of the largest unions in the United States and has immense political influence.”
My point is not to discredit the Teachers Unions… but to point out how the unions have failed the Teachers here.
Is this not evidence of mixed up leadership?
With all that said… trading hours is by no means a solution to the problem; this is a waste of valuable tax funds, at twice the expense. It’s a band-aid made to look as if government workers will come to the rescue of other failing departments.
Let’s all pep rally for the government employees that’ll falsely volunteer with incentives!
this is too hilarious all these opinions formulated but not extensively researched.
Hence the key word, up to two hours of administrative leave,
you go past two hours then you make up your time and you deal with your angry employers for you going past the limit
however, if you volunteer for the selected hour then the additional hour is subjective traveling time if you pick a school from the list then logically you need to make sure its close to downtown ( where most of the local government employees are) what ever your total commute time was say for instance took you 15 mins to get there and 15 mins back will ...can you guess? thats right! 1.30 of admin leave
therefore for 6 or 8 weeks depending on what you chose to do inside of the school just rememeber you will always get that "1.30" of admin leave until your volunteer assignment is over
no you do not get paid "twice" basically think of it like this up to 2 hours admin pay will replace up to 2hrs of your lost pay to cover the 2 hours missing out of your 8 hour work day. if you didnt understand that, then let me put it to you like this: Your not making more than what you would have made NOT volunteering.
When you sign up the employee picks the school and what they want to do there. each school lists what their needs are. once you submit an online form a pencil foundation rep will ask you to fill out the background authorization form and another form. they ask you things like are you in college or what college you attended , what you want to do in the school system etc.
you could be a reading aid, cafeteria monitor, help with landscaping, mentor etc.
certain things like mentoring and classroom aide work requires you to complete a training course before you can even volunteer.
then, once you do that pencil lets you know where you are placed, passes the info to the school and school will contact you. you in turn, work with your employers to come up with a time that will not short their work schedule for you to volunteer.
trust me there will be no shortage of "government workers" most do nothing anyway and will either be too lazy to do anything that will require them to think or use any basic reading and math comprehension skills at all.
your hours are documented and pencil has access to that , it would be hard for you to "falsely volunteer" with your job, the school, and pencil monitoring you.
this is about helping at risk schools, nashville ranks at the bottom for education we only have two high schools that i know of that alsways place nationally Hume Fogg and I believe Martin Luther King
most of these kids will never leave tn and being behind on education they will still make it to the job market and you as the older generation will have to put up with incompetent service and professional workers all because they lacked the proper education or mentor.