Things I Have Learned - Human Resources Edition

Below is a list of things I have learned and deduced from the district’s web site, emails, phone calls, and open records requests.

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A college degree in human resources is not required to be the chief human resources officer in DeKalb County Schools.

A college degree in human resources is not required to be a director in human resources in DeKalb County Schools.

HR had already exceeded the number of international teachers approved by the BOE before going to the board in October and asking to expand the contracts. The BOE was not told the district had already exceeded the limits of the original contracts.  

DeKalb County Schools paid $1,654,790 this school year to two companies for 49 international teachers through the end of March. $563,500 may have been placement fees. I am not sure if the fee is paid when a teacher doesn’t stay for a full year.

International teachers are billed to three different divisions and paid out of 15 different accounts.

Invoice #D1205, in the amount of $99,223, was paid before the first day of school. The invoice date is the same as the invoice entry date and the check was dated three days later.

In the monthly HR reports to the BOE, substitute teachers are counted when hired, but not counted when they resign.

During the 2012 – 2013 school year there were at least 17,374 teacher vacancies which were not filled.

In the current school year, through the end of March, there were at least 13,680 teacher vacancies which were not filled.

In January 2012, the recommendation was made by Huge and Associates to outsource substitute teacher placement after identifying a 13% failed-to-fill rate. “Fill rate of 87% is less than impressive, indicating that 13 of every 100 are unfilled.” 

After receiving reports detailing substitute vacancies by school in response to an open records request, I repeated my original request for substitute vacancies (failed-to-fill positions) listed by school and assignment.  I got a response to that email which included; “The requested information is available in our database; however, reporting the information by school is tied to payroll records and requires additional programming and support.” I had already received the information listed by school.

Also included in that email was this line; “the School District is not required to prepare new reports, summaries or compilations not in existence at the time of the request.” The logical conclusion this points to is the School District does not track or assess failed-to-fill substitute positions. This failure indicates the Human Resources Department is not attempting to improve upon the substitute teacher failed-to-fill rates.

The current system for budgeting has no checks or automatic “red flags” to prevent budgeting more than the salary scale for a position.

The web page for the current salary ranges has been under construction for over a month.

This blog represents only my opinions and observations. It does not represent any other person or group.